Georg Stetter (physicist)

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Georg Carl Stetter (born December 23, 1895 in Vienna ; † July 14, 1988 there ) was an Austrian physicist .

Life

Stetter's father came from Transylvania . Georg Stetter attended the Humanist High School in Vienna and from 1914 studied electrical engineering and mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Vienna , which was interrupted by the First World War, in which he volunteered in 1914 and was employed as a radio specialist in radio communication (Telegraphenregiment St. Pölten ). He became familiar with electromagnetic waves and radio electronics and received the Golden Cross of Merit. After the end of the war he studied physics at the Vienna University of Technology and received his doctorate in 1922. Then he was an assistant in the 2nd Physics Institute and turned to the application of electronics in nuclear physics. He succeeded in determining the exact mass of the neutron and the energy of the fission products during uranium fission and generally in atomic fragmentation experiments ( spallation ), for which he received the Haitinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1926 . In 1928 he completed his habilitation. In 1934 he became professor and in 1939 full professor and head of the 2nd Physics Institute, which worked closely with the Vienna Institute for Radium Research. In 1935 he became president of the Vienna Chemical and Physical Society. He was a staunch National Socialist, a member of the NSDAP and as such an opponent of the modern relativity theory, which was vilified as Jewish . In 1937 he became a representative of the Gauverein Austria on the board of the German Physical Society .

In Vienna he led his own group of six scientists in the German uranium project (measurement of properties of transuranium elements, for neutron physics and nuclear parameters), and from 1943 was director of the four-year plan institute for neutron research, a newly founded institute in Vienna as part of the uranium project . After Rainer Karlsch, it was one of the best equipped nuclear research institutes in the German Reich. At the end of the Second World War he researched cosmic radiation with photo plates near Zell am See , where his institutes were relocated in 1944/45.

After the Second World War, he was relieved of his offices because of his National Socialist past and worked at the research center for occupational diseases in Zell am See (without being permanently employed but with the support of the American military government and the State of Salzburg) on ​​dust protection for the coal mining industry. In doing so, he developed an optical dust measuring device that was recognized as a pioneering act at the time. In 1953, after an official rehabilitation, he was again full professor and head of the 1st Physics Institute at the University of Vienna, succeeding Felix Ehrenhaft, who died in 1952 . In connection with aerosol research, he also dealt intensively with thermal diffusion after the war .

Before the Second World War, he applied for a secret patent on nuclear reactors, but the war did not have any effect. His registration, which was renewed at the earliest possible point in time after the war, ran in Austria until 1971 and was then bought up by the Austrian Study Society for Atomic Energy. Likewise, in 1941, after experiments by his colleague Friedrich Hernegger in the courtyard of the Vienna Radium Institute (with spark discharge as an aid), he registered a patent for energy generation from nuclear fusion with light elements. Karlsch commented that Karl Wirtz gave an expert opinion (and when he was interned as part of Operation Epsilon in Farm Hall , he said that such a patent had been granted in 1941), but otherwise nothing was known about the further course of the patent proceedings.

In 1938 he became a member of the Leopoldina and in 1940 a corresponding and in 1962 a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. From 1955 to 1957 he headed the Austrian dust and silicosis control center, which had been founded in 1949 by Hans Zechner in Leoben. In 1962 he was the founder of a commission for keeping the air clean at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Austria, which he chaired until 1985. In 1966 he received the Erwin Schrödinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and in 1985 the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class . He was an honorary member of the Austrian Physical Society .

Fonts

  • The mass determination of H particles, Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 34, 1925, pp. 158-177
  • The determination of the mass of atomic debris from aluminum, carbon, boron and iron, Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 42, 1927, pp. 741-758
  • The determination of the quotient charge to mass for natural H-rays and atomic debris from aluminum, meeting reports Österr. Akad. Wiss. IIa, Math.-Naturwiss. Class, 1926, pp. 61–69 (= Mitt. Inst. Radiumforschung No. 181)
  • Mass determination of atomic debris, Physikalische Zeitschrift, Volume 27, 1926, pp. 735-738
  • The determination of the quotient charge to mass for atomic debris made of carbon, boron and iron, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1927 (= Mitt. Inst. Radio Research No. 201)
  • The recent investigations on atom fragmentation, Physikalische Zeitschrift, Volume 28, 1927, pp. 712-723
  • The use of electron tube amplifiers for counting corpuscular rays, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1928 (= communication inst. Radio research no.228)
  • with EA Schmidt: The application of the tube electrometer for the investigation of proton beams, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1929 (= Mitt. Inst. Radium Research No. 231)
  • The ionization of individual alpha and H-rays at the end of the range, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1930, (= Mitt. Inst. Radioforschung No. 249)
  • with EA Schmidt: Investigations with the tube electrometer on the alpha reflection and the shattering effect on light elements, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1930 (= Mitt. Inst. Radiumforschung No. 250),
  • with G. Ortner: Atom fragmentation experiments with radium-B + C as radiation source I (methodology), Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1933 (= Mitt. Inst. Radium Research No. 329)
  • with Josef Schintlmeister : Investigations with the double tube electrometer about the smashability of the light elements, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1934 (= Mitt. Inst. Radium Research No. 351)
  • with Willibald Jentschke : Scattering experiments with polonium-alpha rays on heavy nuclei occurring particles of short range, Anzeiger Österr. Akad. Wiss. 1937 (= Mitt. Institut Radiumforschung No. 402)
  • with Hertha Wambacher : Recent results of investigations into multiple fragmentation of atomic nuclei by altitude rays, Physikalische Zeitschrift, Volume 40, 1939, pp. 702-706

literature

  • Peter Weinzierl : Georg Stetter. In: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Almanach 1988/89, Volume 139, Vienna 1989, pp. 321–328.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Among other things on the fission of uranium-238 by fast neutrons and the balance of fast neutrons in uranium, Report G 190, G 193, G 380, all dated November 1942, Stettner, K. Lintner Fast neutrons in uranium. The increase due to the splitting process and the waste due to inelastic scattering . Walter Bothe and A. Flammersfeld undertook similar investigations in Heidelberg. See Klaus Hentschel (Ed.) Physics and National Socialism, Birkhäuser 1996, p. 374
  2. ↑ Karlsch, Hitler's bomb, chapter 1
  3. ↑ His dismissal was lifted in 1948 by the liquidator and in 1950 this was confirmed by the Administrative Court in Vienna
  4. ↑ According to Christa Hammerl, 40 years KRL, Commission for keeping the air clean, Austria. Akad. Wiss., Vienna 2005, p. 92. According to Michael Martischnig, Biographies of Austrian Physicists, a selection, Österr. Staatsarchiv, Wien 2005, p. 140, it was only recognized in 1971 after it had previously been bought by the study society
  5. ^ Karlsch, Hitler's bomb
  6. ^ Member entry by Georg Stetter at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on March 5, 2016.
  7. ^ H-particles are the early name of Ernest Rutherford for protons
personal data
SURNAME Stetter, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stetter, Georg Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1988
Place of death Vienna