Adolf Matthias

Adolf Matthias (born July 29, 1882 in Trier ; † September 3, 1961 in Berlin ) was a German pioneer in electrical engineering in thunderstorm and high voltage research.

Life

He spent his school days in Koblenz. From 1902 to 1906 he studied electrical engineering at the TH Hannover . From 1906 to 1907 he was an operations assistant at the municipal power station in Cologne . He then went to the AEG railway factory in Berlin, initially as Friedrich Eichberg's assistant and later as head of the test fields and the development laboratory of the high-voltage factory. In 1913 he was appointed senior teacher for general electrical engineering and head of the heavy current and high voltage laboratory at the Hamburg State Technical College.

After the First World War , in which he was entrusted with energy issues as an officer, he became chief engineer at AEG.

In 1921, the study society for high-voltage systems was founded by electricity companies , and he became its chairman. He researched the effects of thunderstorms on high-voltage systems, examined hoarfrost disturbances on overhead lines and improved insulating materials . He worked with various university institutes.

tomb

In 1925 the TH Berlin appointed him honorary professor and in the following year full professor for high voltage engineering and electrical systems. The new high-voltage laboratory was initially built in an atrium of the university. The most important measuring device became the cathode ray oscilloscope . The analogy of the cathode rays to the light beam gave rise to the idea of ​​a new microscopy in the institute. Ernst Ruska developed the electron microscope here as a doctoral student . From the TH one moved to Babelsberg on the old premises of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Explosives. In 1945 the laboratory was dismantled by the Red Army and taken to the Soviet Union .

Matthias returned to the newly founded TU Berlin and began to rebuild his research area. He became an honorary senator here . After his death the new facility for high voltage research was named Adolf Matthias Institute . He is buried in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf .

literature

• Ingrid Ahrens:  Matthias, Adolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 411 f. ( Digitized version ).
• TH Hannover (ed.): Catalogus Professorum. The teaching staff of the Technical University of Hanover 1831–1856 , Hanover: Technical University of 1956, pp. 198–199.