Hans E. Suess

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Hans Eduard Suess (born December 16, 1909 in Vienna , † September 20, 1993 in San Diego , United States ) was an Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist .

Life

Hans Eduard Suess' father was the geologist Franz Eduard Suess , his grandfather the geologist Eduard Suess . Hans Suess received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1935 . In 1938 he went to the University of Hamburg , where he completed his habilitation in physical chemistry in 1940. Through his occupation with chemical equilibrium reactions, he became a participant in the German uranium project during World War II and a consultant for the separation of heavy water in the Norsk Hydro hydropower plant in Vemork , Norway. After the war he was involved in the development of the core shell model in Hamburg with Otto Haxel and J. Hans D. Jensen .

In 1950 Suess emigrated to the USA and was, after stints at the University of Chicago with Harold Urey (1950-1951), the United States Geological Survey (1951-1955) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1955-1958), he was Professor of Geochemistry at the University of California at La Jolla (until 1977).

Together with Roger Revelle , he demonstrated for the first time in 1957 that the proportion of 14 C in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was decreasing (→ sweet effect ). It was proven that some of the carbon dioxide from human use of fossil fuels is accumulated in the atmosphere and that the oceans cannot absorb all of it.

With studies of the 14 C content of meteorites , Suess made contributions to cosmochemistry .

Suess further developed the calibration initiated by Hessel de Vries to determine the age from the 14 C / 12 ratio of organic material (→ radiocarbon dating ) to a calibration curve dating back 8000 years. In the curve, Suess found a number of faults, including a multiple cluster-like occurrence of three faults each, several hundred years apart. This apparently periodic occurrence led to the hypothesis of a cycle of solar activity of around 210 years, also known as the De Vries or Suess cycle .

In 1966 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1972 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . The Suess effect , which describes the influence of industrialization on the 14 C content in the atmosphere, is named after Suess .

In 1974, Hans Eduard Suess received the VM Goldschmidt Award .

Ironically, the mineral suessite (an Fe-Ni silicide made from enstatite chondrites) is named for him and not for his famous geologist ancestors.

Publications (excerpt)

Technical articles

  • Otto Haxel, Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen, Hans Suess: On the interpretation of the excellent nucleon numbers in the construction of the atomic nucleus. In: Natural Sciences. Volume 35, 1949.
  • Otto Haxel, Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen, Hans Suess: On the "Magic Numbers" in Nuclear Structure. In: Physical Review. Volume 75, Issue 11, 1949, p. 1766.
  • Otto Haxel, Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen, Hans Suess: Model-based interpretation of the excellent nucleon numbers in the nuclear structure . In: Natural Sciences. , Volume 36, 1949.
  • Otto Haxel, Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen, Hans Suess: Model-based interpretation of the excellent nucleon numbers in the nuclear structure. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 128, 1950, pp. 295-311.
  • with Otto Haxel, Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen: The shell model of the atomic nucleus. In: Results of the exact natural sciences. Volume 26, 1952, pp. 244-290.
  • Hans Suess, Harold C. Urey: Abundances of the Elements. In: Reviews of Modern Physics. Volume 28, Issue 1, 1956, pp. 53-74.
  • Roger Revelle, Hans E. Suess: Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO 2 during the Past Decades. In: Tellus. Volume 9, Issue 1, 1957, pp. 18-27, doi: 10.3402 / tellusa.v9i1.9075 ( PDF , Revelle and Suess pointed out the potential climatic influence of increasing CO 2 concentrations and noted: Thus human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happend in the past nor reproduced in the future. )
  • Hans Suess, Heinrich Wänke: Radiocarbon content and terrestrial age of twelve stony meteorites and one iron meteorite. In: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Volume 26, Issue 4, 1962, pp. 475-480.
  • Hans Suess: The radiocarbon record in tree rings of the last 8000 years. In: Radiocarbon. Volume 22, Issue 2, 1980, 200–209, doi: 10.1017 / S0033822200009462 (on the fluctuations in the radiocarbon curve dating back 8,000 years, based on the spectrum of which Suess, among other things, identified a period of a good 200 years).

Monographs

  • Chemistry of the Solar System: An Elementary Introduction to Cosmochemistry. John Wiley & Sons, 1987. ISBN 978-0471831075 .

literature

  • Fathi Habashi: Suess, Hans Eduard. In: Thomas Hockey et al. (Ed.): Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers , Springer, New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4419-9916-0 , pp. 2103-2104. doi : 10.1007 / 978-0-387-30400-7_1345
  • Michael Schaaf: Heisenberg, Hitler and the bomb. Conversations with contemporary witnesses. GNT-Verlag, Diepholz 2018, ISBN 978-3-86225-115-5 (in it a conversation with Paul Harteck and others about Suess)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Short biography and publications by Hans E. Suess (1909–1993). University of Hamburg, accessed on October 11, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Hans Suess Papers, 1875-1991 (bulk 1955-1991) (MSS 0199). University of California at San Diego, accessed October 11, 2019 .
  3. ^ Charles David Keeling : The Suess Effect: 13 Carbon– 14 Carbon interrelations . In: Environment International . 1979, doi : 10.1016 / 0160-4120 (79) 90005-9 .
  4. ↑ https://www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft/klimawandel-die-wichtsten-ffekten-im-ueberblick-ld.1420749
  5. ^ A b Heinrich Wänke, James R. Arnold: Hans E. Suess . In: Biographical Memoirs . tape 87 , 2005, pp. 354-373 ( nap.edu ).
  6. ↑ Ilya Usoskin, Kalevi Mursula: Grand minima and maxima of solar activity . In: Jean Lilensten, Thierry Dudok de Wit, Kadja Matthes (eds.): Earth's climate response to a changing Sun: A review of the current understanding by the European research group TOSCA . EOP Science, 2016, ISBN 978-2-7598-2021-4 .
personal data
SURNAME Suess, Hans E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Suess, Hans Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 20th September 1993
Place of death San Diego