Walther Meissner

Walther Meissner

Walther Meißner (also: Fritz Walther Meißner ; born December 16, 1882 in Berlin ; † November 15, 1974 in Munich ) was a German physicist .

Life

Walther Meißner studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Charlottenburg from 1901 to 1904 and then mathematics and physics at the Berlin Friedrich Wilhelms University . As one of the few doctoral students at Max Planck , he received his doctorate in 1907 on the theory of radiation pressure .

In 1908 Meißner joined the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt and was appointed to the Government Council in 1915 and to the Upper Government Council in 1927. In the laboratory for pyrometry he was initially responsible for testing and research work in the field of thermometry and in 1913 switched to the electrical research laboratory. Presumably because of his training in mechanical engineering, he was supposed to set up a hydrogen liquefaction plant for research work in the field of low-temperature physics . It was enlarged after the end of the war (Meißner took part in the war from 1915 to 1918 as a volunteer). From 1922 to 1925 Meißner built a helium liquefaction plant , which was the third worldwide (after Leiden and Toronto ). The larger refrigeration laboratory established in 1927 and the laboratory for electrical atomic research were headed by Meißner.

The subsequent research and development work made Meißner known as an experimental physicist . Together with Robert Ochsenfeld , he discovered the Meißner-Ochsenfeld effect in 1932 , which is regarded as a fundamental discovery about superconductivity . Earlier, in 1930, he had in Berlin habilitation .

In 1934 Meißner was offered a chair for technical physics at the Technical University of Munich and became head of the laboratory for technical physics, to which a state testing office was affiliated. He set up a new refrigeration laboratory, for which a new helium liquefier was built from 1936 to 1938 according to his plans , which was no longer pre-cooled with liquid hydrogen, but by an expansion machine. In World War II , the research has been severely compromised. In 1943 the laboratory had to be relocated to Herrsching am Ammersee and housed in barracks.

After the end of the war, Meissner, who was politically unaffected, was given many additional tasks in addition to the return of the Laboratory for Technical Physics to Munich and its reconstruction. At the Technical University he became dean of the Faculty of General Sciences. At the same time he was a member of the board of directors of the Deutsches Museum , for whose reconstruction he campaigned strongly, and became chairman of the Physical Society in Bavaria .

With the approval of the American military government , the Bavarian Ministry of Culture appointed Walther Meißner as acting president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences on January 8, 1946 , of which he had been a member since 1938 and which elected him for the term of office from 1947 to 1950. During his tenure, together with Klaus Clusius , he founded the Commission for Low Temperature Research, of which he was chairman until 1963 and which was temporarily housed in the makeshift laboratory building in Herrsching. The new building of the Central Institute for Low Temperature Research in Garching , which was commissioned in 1967 , was initiated by Meißner. At this institute, which was renamed the Walther Meißner Institute in his honor on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 1982 , Meißner continued to experiment in the field of low-temperature research into old age.

Meissner's retirement from the Technical University took place in 1952. Heinz Maier-Leibnitz was appointed his successor , who also took over as chairman of the commission for low-temperature research in 1963.

Walther Meißner received numerous honors for his scientific and social services. In 1938 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1954 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit and in 1959 the Bavarian Order of Merit . The University of Mainz awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1953 and the Technical University of Berlin in 1963. The painter Hans Jürgen Kallmann created a portrait of Meißner on behalf of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . On his 80th birthday, his numerous students and friends dedicated issue 12 (volume 14, 1962) of the journal for applied physics to him. Streets were named after him in the Sendling district of Munich and at the Garching research campus .

Fonts

Walther Meißner wrote about 200 scientific publications. He was co-editor of the magazine for applied physics , refrigeration engineering and the technical physics series in individual presentations . The publication of the Meißner-Ochsenfeld effect is entitled:

• W. Meißner, R. Ochsenfeld: A new effect when superconductivity occurs . In: Die Naturwissenschaften, 1933, Vol. 21, p. 787

literature

• Herbert Schubert:  Meißner, Walther. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 705-707 ( digitized version ).
• Franz X. Eder : Walther Meißner on his 80th birthday . In: Journal for Applied Physics, 1962, Issue 12, p. 697 f.
• Heinz Maier-Leibnitz: Obituary for Walther Meißner . In: Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences 1975, pp. 232–233

Web links

• Short biography of Walther Meißner
• Homepage of the Walther Meißner Institute (English)
• Literature by and about Walther Meißner in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Member entry of Walther Meißner (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 1, 2016.
2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 165.
3. ↑ Walther Meißner painted by Hans Jürgen Kallmann

predecessor	Office	successor
Mariano San Nicolò	President of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences from 1946 to 1950	Heinrich Mitteis