Elsa Neumann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Else Neumann's doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1899. Engraving after a drawing by Ewald Thiel.

Elsa Neumann (born August 23, 1872 in Berlin ; † July 23, 1902 there ) was a German physicist . In 1899 she became the first woman in physics at Berlin University doctorate .

Life

As a woman, Elsa Neumann was generally denied access to higher education in her home country. In 1890, she first completed the teacher examination, an apprenticeship that at that time did not require any higher education and was ranked below the secondary school . As a result, she took private lessons from various professors in order to acquire the knowledge necessary for a degree . From 1894 she studied physics , mathematics , chemistry and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen for nine semesters . Since women in Prussia were still prohibited from regular university studies at that time, they had to obtain special permission from each professor to be able to attend lectures with him. Physics professors Emil Warburg and Max Planck were among its most influential sponsors. In 1898, with special permission from the Ministry of Culture, she received approval for a doctorate, which she graduated cum laude in the same year ; the graduation ceremony took place on February 18, 1899. Her work "About the polarization capacity of reversible electrodes" was published in 1899 in the respected journal Annalen der Physik .

Due to the poor career prospects for women with a doctorate at academic institutions, Elsa Neumann worked as a private scholar from 1899 and carried out her research in the private chemical laboratory of Arthur Rosenheim and Richard Joseph Meyer , which had been located at Chausseestrasse 2e in Berlin since 1891. Elsa Neumann died here on Wednesday, July 23, 1902, as a result of an accident while experimenting with hydrogen cyanide .

After the death of her daughter, her mother donated the Elsa Neumann Prize , which was to be awarded on February 18 of each year for the best mathematical and physical work at the University of Berlin, expressly regardless of the author's gender or religion. The twelve winners of the award, which was awarded from 1906 to 1918, were all male. A well-known award winner is the nuclear physicist Walther Bothe .

Elsa Neumann was aware of her exceptional position and was committed to promoting women's studies in Prussia. Although or because she came from a wealthy family, she was aware that women's studies had to be supported economically. On April 26, 1900, she was the founder, first chairwoman and later honorary member of the "Association for the Granting of Interest-Free Loans to Student Women". The association had itself registered on April 30, 1900 at the District Court I in Charlottenburg. In the statute he defined in paragraph 3: "The purpose of the association is to facilitate the study of women studying by granting interest-free loans and to enable them to take a final exam." Elsa Neumann was the 1st chairwoman from April 1900 to March 1902 and became in March 1902 "as an honorary member with the right to participate in the board negotiations". From 1902 the microbiologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (1871–1935) was the first chairwoman. She held this office until 1930, d. H. at least as long as the association had significant funds. It was effectively re-established on March 26, 1930; the fortune was only 3,000 marks. According to the protocol in 1934, Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner was still an “honorary member”. Her death on August 3, 1935 prevented her from being expelled due to the racist Nazi laws.

During the Nazi rule, her sister Alice committed suicide due to the persecution that began and her brothers were murdered in the concentration camps.

Since July 2010, the State of Berlin has been awarding doctoral scholarships and special grants to particularly qualified young professionals as the "Elsa Neumann Scholarship of the State of Berlin".

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Astrid Dähn: The first Miss Doctor in Berlin (Berliner Zeitung, February 24, 1999, accessed August 23, 2016)
  2. ^ Annette B. Vogt: Elsa Neuman , in: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women
  3. ^ Elsa Neumann grant
personal data
SURNAME Neumann, Elsa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1902
Place of death Berlin