Landau, Ginzburg, Devonshire and others

Macroscopic modeling of ferroelectric properties refers usually to Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory. This paper questions the meaningfulness of this term, discussing contributions of the three authors in the title to what is supposed to be a theory. The limitations of every contribution are analysed. In the main text and, to more extent in the , the Landau theory is presented from an unusual perspective starting from simple mechanical models of spontaneous symmetry breaking and finishing by the Ising model. The aim of the presentation is to emphasize along with the qualitative breakthroughs the approximate character of macroscopic modeling associated with the above three authors.