Marian Smoluchowski

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Marian Smoluchowski

Marian von Smoluchowski (born May 28, 1872 in Vorder-Brühl near Vienna , † September 5, 1917 in Cracow , Galicia ) was a Polish physicist .

Life

Smoluchowski studied physics in Vienna, where Franz-Serafin Exner and Joseph Stefan were his teachers. In 1894 he received the highest grade for his doctorate there, Sub auspiciis Imperatoris . Ludwig Boltzmann taught at the University of Munich while Smoluchowski studied in Vienna, and he returned in 1894 when Smoluchowski was serving in the Austro-Hungarian army. So it seems that the two have had no direct contact with each other. After a few years that he spent at other universities (Paris, Glasgow and Berlin), he moved to Lviv in 1899 , where he took up a position at the university there . In 1901 he married Zofia Baraniecka and had 2 children with her: Aldona (1902–1984) and Roman (1910–1996). In 1908 Smoluchowski was awarded the Haitinger Prize of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna .

Smoluchowski moved to Kraków in 1913, where he took over the chair for experimental physics from August Witkowski (1854–1913). After the outbreak of World War I, working conditions became increasingly difficult, and even the spacious and modern building of the physics department was converted into a hospital for military authorities. Smoluchowski was therefore forced to work in the former department of the late Karol Olszewski , where he did not even have access to the simplest means of demonstration. Among his students were Józef Patkowski , Stanisław Loria (1883–1958) and Wacław Dziewulski (1882–1938).

His favorite pastimes were skiing, mountain climbing, painting and playing the piano. Smoluchowski died in 1917 as a victim of a dysentery epidemic.

plant

In 1904, Smoluchowski was the first physicist to recognize that gases and liquids are subject to density fluctuations. He calculated the average particle density in an ideal gas. In 1908 he recognized that the phenomenon of critical opalescence occurs when there are large fluctuations in density . He also noticed the dispersion of light in the atmosphere , which is responsible for the blue color of the sky.

In 1906 he described and explained the Brownian movement independently of Albert Einstein . Smoluchowski presented an equation that plays an important role in understanding diffusion and became the basis for the theory of stochastic processes. 1910–1916 he examined the connections between reversibility and irreversibility .

He is the namesake of the Marian Smoluchowski Emil Warburg Physics Prize of the German Physical Society and the Polish Physical Society and the Marian Smoluchowski Medal .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Smoluchowski, M .: On the kinetic theory of Brownian molecular motion and suspensions . In: Annals of Physics . tape 326 , 1906, pp. 756-780 . [1]

Web links

See also

personal data
SURNAME Smoluchowski, Marian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smoluchowski, Marian von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-Polish physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Vorder-Brühl near Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 5, 1917
Place of death Krakow , Galicia