Georg Joos

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Jakob Christoph Georg Joos (born May 25, 1894 in Bad Urach , † May 20, 1959 in Munich ) was a German physicist .

Life

Joos was born in Urach ( Kingdom of Württemberg ) in 1894 as the son of the notary Georg Joos and his wife Maria (née Müller) . After graduating from high school , he studied engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart , but this was interrupted by the beginning of the First World War. In this Joos served as a lieutenant in the artillery . After the war he studied physics at the University of Tübingen , where he learned from Friedrich Paschen and Christian Füchtbauer . In 1920 received a doctorate to Dr. rer. nat. He spent the years 1921 to 1924 as an assistant to Jonathan Zenneck at the Technical University of Munich , where he completed his habilitation in 1922 . In 1921 he married Hedwig Brucklacher, with whom he later had four children. The son Peter Joos later became a physicist himself. During this time in Munich (1922–1923) Joos was politically active first in the DVP and then in the NSDAP . Joos ended his membership in 1923. As a former front-line fighter, Joos was also organized in the Stahlhelm . In 1924 Joos became a lecturer under Max Wien at the University of Jena , where he taught quantum and relativity theory . In the following year, he received the professorship for theoretical physics as Felix Auerbach's successor and became director of the Physics Institute.

The role of Joos in the time of National Socialism can be described as ambivalent in view of his activities at that time. At the end of 1923 he turned away from the National Socialists and since then there has been no membership in the NSDAP. Personally, he was an open and harsh critic of the National Socialists. The Jewish Nobel Prize laureate James Franck had resigned his professorship for experimental physics and the head of the 2nd Physics Institute at the University of Göttingen in protest against National Socialist politics . Joos was appointed his successor on April 1, 1935. According to Walther Gerlach , this happened against Joos' wishes, but on the other hand the topic of his inaugural lecture, "Physics as a weapon in the struggle for existence", fit into the National Socialist concept. In 1938 Joos was appointed honorary to the main office for technology at the NSDAP Reichsleitung and worked in this context at the training castle of the National Socialist Association of German Technology . In the following time, however, Joos repeatedly came into conflict with the National Socialist German Lecturers' Association , which eventually led to the abandonment of his professorship a few years later. However, Joos worked closely with higher-level agencies. In April 1939 he informed the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education about the possibilities of nuclear fission , which marked the beginning of the German uranium project . Joos only left the project when he was designated for military service. Since the late 1920s, Joos had worked closely with the Carl Zeiss works on his experiments . They also sought contact with him after he moved to Göttingen . The company management even tried to prevent Joos from being recalled by intervening at the arms office of the Kriegsmarine . In 1941, Joos finally received an offer to join the company. Due to "factual and personal difficulties with Nazi authorities", so Walther Gerlach, Joos decided to accept the position. Until 1945 he worked as chief physicist and later in management, while at the same time he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Jena. He was also on the scientific command of the Navy.

After the end of the war, Joos was first brought to Heidenheim an der Brenz by the US military and then questioned as a potential military manager in the prison camps in Taunus and in Wimbledon (London) . However, he was soon released, so that in September 1946 he could follow the appointment to the Technical University in Munich, where he went to the reconstruction of the Physics Institute. He held this position until his death in 1959, only interrupted by a stay in the United States , where he was a visiting professor at the Optical Research Laboratory at Boston University from June 1947 to October 1949 . From 1935 he was a full member and from 1942 a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . From 1947 Joos was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and co-founder of the » Journal for Applied Physics «, of which he took over management in 1951. In addition, his former teacher Zenneck appointed him to the board of the Deutsches Museum in 1950 .

plant

Joos worked successfully in theoretical and experimental physics, especially with atomic physics, optics (such as the theory of the microscope by Ernst Abbe ) and solid-state physics (including solid-state optics , para- and diamagnetism ) and various applications ( photographic elementary process , theory of the tube amplifier in his Habilitation). He became known u. a. through his work on the theory of relativity : In 1930 he repeated the famous Michelson-Morley experiment and confirmed Einstein's special theory of relativity (constancy of the speed of light ) with an accuracy that was a record at the time. The "Textbook of Theoretical Physics" written by Joos shaped generations of physics students and its introduction to higher mathematics for practitioners was widespread at the time.

Joos and his colleague Wilhelm Hanle not only referred to the use of nuclear energy early in 1939 in a letter to the Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust and took part with Hanle at the first meeting of the Reich Research Council on April 29, 1939 (convened by Abraham Esau , Head of the physics department in the Reich Research Council and former professor colleague of Joos in Jena), he also continued research in Göttingen with Hanle on the possibility of using graphite as a moderator in reactors, for which they produced graphite in high purity in 1940. The group of the well-known nuclear physicist Walther Bothe in Heidelberg, on the other hand, had experimented with impure graphite, came to negative results with regard to its properties as a neutron moderator and was able to prevail against Joos with this view - both reported on this in March 1941 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. As a result, German nuclear research relied on a heavy water reactor, while the first reactor in Chicago with graphite as a moderator was started up under the direction of Enrico Fermi in the USA.

Fonts

  • Georg Joos: textbook of theoretical physics. 15th edition. Academic Publishing Company, Frankfurt am Main 1989.
    • English translation of Theoretical Physics. (Hafner, 1934, 1950, 1957, 1958) (Blackie and Son, 1942, 1946, 1947, 1951, 1953, 1958) (Dover, 1986, 1987)
  • Georg Joos, Ernst Angerer, Johannes Stark : Excitation of the spectra of spectroscopic apparatus and Stark effect. Academic Publishing Society, 1927.
  • Georg Joos: anthology with 3 offprints from the manual of experimental physics. Academic Publishing Company, 1928–1929.
  • Georg Joos: Atoms and Universe. A presentation. In: Student and Life. Issue 3, Jena 1931.
  • Georg Joos, Theodor Kaluza : Higher mathematics for the practitioner. (Barth, 1947, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1964)
  • Georg Joos (ed.): Physics of solid bodies. I, II. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, 1947, 1948.
    • English Physics of Solids. Part I, II. FIAT Review of German Science 1939-1946, Physics of Solids (Office of Military Government for Germany Field Information Agencies, Technical, 1947, 1948)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Walther Gerlach: Joos, Georg. In: New German Biography. Vol. 10. Munich 1974, pp. 594f.
  2. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich - Who Was Was Before and After 1945 , Frankfurt / Main 2005, p. 289; Helmut Maier: Research as a weapon: armaments research in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Metal Research 1900–1945 / 48. Vol. 2. Wallstein Verlag, 2007, p. 1005 fn. 4.
  3. ↑ Uwe Hossfeld: Combative Science - Studies at Jena University in National Socialism. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2003, p. 618.
  4. ^ Reports of the physical institute Giessen to the State Secretary in the Bavarian Ministry 1946, report of the University of Istanbul 1946, declaration by Arnold Sommerfeld , corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences Washington 1946, certificate of the management Carl Zeiss 1946, report of the rector of the Ludwigs-Universität Giessen 1946.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich - Who was what before and after 1945. Frankfurt / Main 2005, p. 289.
  6. ↑ Uwe Hossfeld: Combative Science - Studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2003, p. 618
  7. ↑ a b Klaus Hentschel: Physics and national socialism - An anthology of primary sources. Verlag Birkhäuser, Basel 1996, p. XXXIV.
  8. ↑ See Helmut Maier: Community research, authorized representatives and knowledge transfer - the role of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the system of war-related research under National Socialism. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2007, pp. 277–284.
  9. ↑ Jürgen John, Rüdiger Stutz: The Jena University 1918–1945. In: Traditions, Fractions, Changes - The University of Jena 1850-1995. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2009, p. 542; Uwe Hossfeld: Combative Science - Studies at Jena University in National Socialism. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2003, p. 617.
  10. ^ R. Karlsch: Hitler's bomb. DVA, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05809-1 , note 112 to part 3.
  11. ↑ 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. 125.
  12. ^ Hans-Jürgen Borchers: Georg Joos, 1894-1959. In: Karl Arndt, Gerhard Gottschalk, Rudolf Smend, Ruth Slenczka (eds.): Göttingen scholars - The Göttingen Academy of Sciences in portraits and appreciations 1751-2001. Vol. 1. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2001, p. 454.
  13. ↑ Karen Königsberger: "Networked System"? - The history of the Deutsches Museum 1945–1980 presented in the chemistry and nuclear physics departments. Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2009, p. 47.
  14. ^ Karlsch: Hitler's bomb. DVA 2005, chapter 2.1
personal data
SURNAME Joos, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Joos, Jakob Christoph Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Urach
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1959
Place of death Munich