Karl Rawer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Professor Dr. rer. nat. Dr. hc Karl Rawer on his 104th birthday in 2017
Karl Rawer on his 104th birthday (2017)

Karl Maria Alois Rawer (born April 19, 1913 in Neunkirchen (Saar) ; † April 17, 2018 in March ) was a German physicist and researcher in the field of high atmosphere and ionosphere . In 1940 he developed a method for predicting the propagation of shortwave , with the help of which the German Wehrmacht was able to adequately set up its shortwave communications links during World War II .

Life

Karl Rawer had been a member of the Catholic Union of New Germany since 1925 , from 1931 to 1937 he held functions in its “Elder League” and from 1937 to 1939 he was the coordinator of the still existing student groups of the federal government. After studying mathematics in Freiburg with Gustav Doetsch , then physics in Munich with Arnold Sommerfeld and doctoral supervisor Jonathan Zenneck , he dealt with partial reflection on an ionized layer using the complex gamma function in his dissertation .

Johannes Plendl , inventor of important navigation procedures for the Luftwaffe , commissioned him in 1940 to set up an advisory service for their shortwave radio links. The analytical method he developed takes into account in detail the peculiarities of the propagation on several zigzag paths between the earth and the ionosphere and, depending on the time of day, determines the usable frequency range for each of these paths and (statistically) its variation from day to day. The (important) change in solar activity is predicted based on a published method by the astronomer Wolfgang Gleißberg .

In the spring of 1946, Yves Rocard engaged him with some of his German employees for similar tasks in the French Navy , for which he was responsible for ten years as scientific director of the ionospheric forecasting service (Service de prévision ionosphérique - SPIM). During this time, SPIM set up several sounding stations in Africa and a floating one off the coast of Adélieland . In 1954, Rawer's group was involved in an experiment in the first scientific ascent of a Véronique missile of the French army . Later, again in German service, she carried out further studies of the high atmosphere with such rockets in Hammaguir (Sahara) and Kourou (French Guiana), afterwards also in cooperation with the European space agency ESA. With the Eros satellites launched in 1972 and 1975 , the aeronomy of the ionosphere was investigated insofar as the extreme ultraviolet radiation of the sun was the cause on the one hand and the state variables of the neutral and ionized gases were measured as a consequence on the other. The results were of importance for the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) project jointly supported by URSI and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) , which Rawer led for almost two decades.

Rawer was actively involved in the preparation of the International Geophysical Year (Gold button 2007) and, together with William Roy Piggott, wrote the instructions for the evaluation of standard measurements of the ionosphere, which are still valid today. In COSPAR , the international space research organization, and in the URSI he held various offices, including chairman of the URSI Ionosphere Commission from 1969 to 1972 and of the West German COSPAR state committee from 1969 to 1983.

Rawer had been married to Hans Hien's younger sister Waltraut (1919-2006) since August 28, 1939 . The marriage resulted in three sons and four daughters. He was an honorary doctor of the University of Düsseldorf , a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the International Academy of Astronautics .

Rawer was honored with the Federal Cross of Merit First Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

From 1946 Rawer lived with his family in March near Freiburg im Breisgau . He died two days before his 105th birthday.

Fonts

Books

  • The ionosphere. Their importance for geophysics and radio traffic . Nordhoff, Groningen 1953.
  • with Kurt Suchy : Radio Observations of the Ionosphere (= Handbuch der Physik, 49/2). Springer, Berlin 1967.
  • with Karl Rahner : Universe, Earth, Man (= Christian faith in modern society, 3). Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981, ISBN 3-451-19203-9 .
  • Wave Propagation in the Ionosphere . Kluwer, Dordrecht 1993, ISBN 0-7923-0775-5 .

editor

  • Quantitive Description of Ionospheric Storm Effects and Irregularities . Proceedings of the C4.2 Symposium of COSPAR Scientific Commission C which was held during the thirty-first COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Birmingham, UK, July 14-21, 1996. Pergamon, Oxford et al. a. 1997. ( Advances in space research, 20.9.)
  • Low and Equatorial Latitudes in the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI). Proceedings of the COSPAR International Scientific Symposium Held in New Delhi, India, 9-13 January 1995 . Elsevier Science, Oxford, ISBN 0-08-042673-5 . ( Advances in Space Research; 18.6.)
  • Advances in Global Regional Descriptions of Ionospheric Parameters. Proceedings of URSI / COSPAR Symposium Held in Athens, Greece, October 1-4, 1991 . Pergamon Press, Oxford et al. a. 1992. VI, ISBN 0-08-042188-1 .
  • Ionospheric Informatics and Empirical Modeling: Proceedings . Pergamon Pr. In Komm., Oxford et al. 1990. ( Advances in space research, 10.8; COSPAR plenary meeting, 27 [partial edition])
  • Study of Ionospheric and Tropospheric Models: Final Report (with Dieter Bilitza; European Space Agency). o. O. 1985. ( ESA Report Reference, CR (P) 2157.)
  • Jakov Lvovič Alpert, Karl Rawer, ao: Geophysics III. Springer, Berlin 1976. ( Handbuch der Physik, ed. By S. Flügge, Volume 49/5; Geophysik. 3/5.)
  • Methods of Measurements and Results of Lower Iconosphere Structure. Proceedings of the Symposium [on Methods of Measurements and Results of Lower Ionosphere Structure] Held in Constance, FRG 23-26 May 1973 . Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1974.
  • 49.3. Handbook of Physics . Berlin et al. 1971, VII, ISBN 3-540-05570-3 .
  • URSI Handbook on Ionogram Interpretation and Reduction (with William Roy Piggott ). Elsevier, Amsterdam 1961, p. XI, 192. Translations by national URSI committees into Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian.
  • Winds and Turbulence in Stratosphere, Mesosphere and Ionosphere. 1966, OCLC 164467074 .
  • Detrimental Activities in Space . Report of the COSPAR Panel on Potentially Environmentally Detrimental Activities in Space. Pergamon Pr., Oxford 1982, VII, ISBN 0-08-029694-7 . ( Advances in space research, 2.3.)

biography

  • Karl Rawer: My children are circling the earth. (Autobiography). Herder, Freiburg i. Brsg. 1986, ISBN 3-451-08226-8 .
  • Bodo W. Reinisch: Karl Rawer's life and the history of IRI. In: Advances in Space Research. 34, 1845-1950, 2004.
  • Dieter Bilitza: 35 Years of International Reference Ionosphere - Karl Rawer's legacy. Adv.Radio Sci.2, 203 2004 (to be found on Google Docs )

Web links

Person links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Rawer: My children circle the earth. see section #Biography
  2. ^ Karl Rawer: Propagation of Decameter Waves (HFBand). In: Meteorological and Aeronomical Influences on Radio Wave Propagation , Pergamon Press, Oxford 1963, pp. 216ff
  3. ^ Karl Rawer: Wave Propagation in the Ionosphere. see section Fonts
  4. ↑ F. Delobeau, E. Harnischmacher, F. Oboril: Resultats preliminaires d'observations ionospheriques a Dakar. In: Rev Scientif. Volume 88, 1950, pp. 17-20.
  5. ↑ M. Barre, K. Rawer: Une perturbation ionospherique extraordinaire observee en Terre Adelie. In: Ann Geophys. Volume 6, 1950, pp. 309-317.
  6. ^ Karl Rawer: Some results of the AEROS missions. In: Space Research XVI Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1976
  7. ↑ International Reference Ionosphere (with plug-in) , (without plug-in) , accessed August 25, 2011
  8. ^ William Roy Piggott, Karl Rawer: Handbook of Ionogram Interpretation and Reduction. see section Fonts
  9. ^ Bernhard Rawer: Family Tree Rawer , accessed on December 18, 2010
  10. ↑ Holger Kock: A life for space research: Karl Rawer turns 100 . Press release of the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM in Freiburg, April 19, 2013, accessed on April 19, 2018 (pdf; 189 kB).
  11. ↑ Manfred Frietsch: Always an independent mind . Badische Zeitung , April 20, 2013, accessed on April 19, 2018.
    Julius Steckmeister: “I'm doing really well today - otherwise reasonably” . In: Badische Zeitung, April 20, 2017, accessed on April 19, 2018.
  12. ^ Obituary notice in the Badische Zeitung, April 19, 2018, accessed on April 19, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Rawer, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rawer, Karl Maria Alois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Neunkirchen (Saar)
DATE OF DEATH 17th April 2018
Place of death March