Jakob Laub (physicist)

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Jakob Johann Laub (born Jakub Laub; born February 7, 1884 in Rzeszów , Galicia , † April 22, 1962 in Freiburg , Switzerland ) was a physicist . He is best known for his collaboration with Albert Einstein in the early days of special relativity .

Life

Jakob Laub was the son of Abraham Laub and Anna Maria Schenborn. Laub, who converted from the Jewish to the Catholic faith and changed his name from "Jakub" to "Jakob Johann", first attended the grammar school in Rzeszów. Next stations were the University of Vienna , the University of Krakow and finally the University of Göttingen , where he studied mathematics a . a. studied with David Hilbert , Woldemar Voigt , Walther Nernst , Karl Schwarzschild and Hermann Minkowski . He then moved to the University of Würzburg , where he received his doctorate in 1907 . Soon he was in closer contact with Wilhelm Wien , Arnold Sommerfeld , Johannes Stark and Albert Einstein . When he traveled to Bern in 1908 to visit Einstein (with whom he later corresponded and was friends) and saw him still working there as a patent employee, he described this as a "staircase joke of history". In 1909, Laub became an employee of Philipp Lenard at Heidelberg University .

In 1911 he emigrated to Argentina with his wife Ruth Elisa Wendt . There he worked at the geophysical and astronomical observatory in La Plata . He then moved to a managerial position in a physics department in Buenos Aires . After taking over the Argentine citizenship (with the Spanish first name variant "Jacobo Juan"), he translated a parliamentary speech from 24th and 25th September 1917 by Horacio B. Oyhanarte with Pierre Ramus . In 1920 he entered the diplomatic service. From 1920 to 1925 Laub was chargé d'affaires in the Vice Consular Office in Munich. In 1925 Laub became Vice Consul in Breslau . From 1928 to 1930 he was the private secretary of Horacio B. Oyhanarte. From December 1933 to 1937 he was Consul General in Hamburg . In 1937 he became consul general in Breslau. From 1937 to September 4, 1939 he was ambassador in Warsaw. On September 4, 1939, he was assigned to the Consulate General in Zurich and recalled to Argentina 14 days later. In May 1945, he was in the diplomatic service in the retirement staggered. His wife Ruth Wendt got a position at the economic institute in 1928 . On March 5, 1933, her employment contract was terminated because she was married to a Jew. In 1947 he returned to Europe. In his new hometown of Freiburg he got into economic hardship and therefore sold some of his correspondence with Einstein.

plant

From 1905 he studied with Wilhelm Wien the cathode rays . Then he turned to the theory of relativity and in 1907 wrote an important work on the optics of moving bodies. In 1908, together with Einstein, he wrote several papers on the basic electromagnetic equations, which were supposed to replace Minkowski's four-dimensional formulation of electrodynamics with a simpler, classic formulation. He published work on relativistic effects in gases and in 1910 wrote one of the first review articles on the theory of relativity. Even later, Laub wrote many scientific papers on various topics.

Publications

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lewis Pyenson: Silver Horizon: A note on the later years of the physicist-diplomat Jakob Laub . In: Yearbook for the History of Latin America (JbLA) . tape 25 , 1988, ISSN  1438-4752 , pp. 757–766 , doi : 10.7767 / jbla.1988.25.1.757 (English, degruyter.com [PDF]).
  2. ↑ Brigham Narins, Notable Scientists from 1900 to the Present: IM , Gale Group, 2001, p 1319th
predecessor Office successor
Ambassador of Argentina to Poland from
1937 to September 4, 1939 		Fernando José Taurel
personal data
SURNAME Leaves, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laub, Jakob Johann (full name); Laub, Jakub (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine physicist and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Rzeszów , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1962
Place of death Freiburg im Üechtland , Switzerland