Ernest Hirschlaff Hutten

Ernest Hirschlaff Hutten , born Ernst Hirschlaff (born November 23, 1908 in Berlin ; † January 8, 1996 ), was a German - British physicist and philosopher of science .

Life and activity

Hutten was born Ernst Hirschlaff in Berlin to a Jewish family. His father was killed in the First World War. After attending school, Hirschlaff studied physics. In 1932 he received his doctorate with a thesis on iodine and tellurium.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, he was arrested for his activities in anti-fascist groups and temporarily taken into protective custody in Spandau. After his release, he went to the UK, where he found a job as a researcher at Cambridge University's Physical Chemistry Laboratory . There he worked under Ernest Rutherford until 1935 . In 1936 he moved to the Royal Society Moon Laboratory.

Around 1937, after Rutherford's death, Hirschlaff, who had since changed his name to Ernest Hirschlaff Hutten, went to the United States. From 1942 to 1947 he worked at the University of Chicago . During his stay in the USA he worked with Einstein and Shrodinger, among others.

At the end of the 1930s, Huttens was targeted by the National Socialist police, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who would be forced through in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles The Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the SS special commandos following the occupation troops with special priority.

In 1947 he returned to Great Britain, where he got a job as a lecturer at the University of London. He had refused employment in the US nuclear weapons program on grounds of principle.

1957 Hutten received the rank of University Reader. In 1970 Hutten was awarded the title of Professor of Theoretical Physics. In 1977 he retired as emeritus professor.

Hutten's main research interests were the non-linear theories of optics and quantum mechanics .

Fonts

• About the absorption bands of iodine and tellurium: The resonance spectra of iodine vapor at high temperatures , 1932. (as Ernst Hirschlaff)
• Fluorescene & Phosphorescence , 1938.
• The Language of Modern Physics , 1956.
• The Origins of Science , 1962.
• The Concepts of Physics , 1967.

literature

• Who's who of British Scientists , 1969, p. 420.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Hutten on the special wanted list GB .