Marianus Czerny

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Marianus Czerny (born February 17, 1896 in Breslau , † September 10, 1985 in Munich ) was a German experimental physicist who dealt with molecular spectra (infrared spectroscopy). He was a professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main .

Life

He was the son of the pediatrician Adalbert Czerny , his mother was the daughter of a large landowner in Upper Silesia. He attended high school in Strasbourg and was wounded in World War I in 1916 (his left elbow was shot to death). Most recently he was a lieutenant in the Guard Infantry. From 1918 he studied at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and then at the University of Berlin . In 1923 he received his doctorate in Berlin with a dissertation in infrared physics ( About a new form of Rubens' residual radiation method ), which he began under Heinrich Rubens and which was supervised by Gerhard Hettner after his death . He then became an assistant at the Physics Institute. At that time, Czerny attracted attention when, only a little after the Stern-Gerlach experiment (1922), which demonstrated the existence of half-integer quantum numbers in electron spin, he also found them in the rotational bands of molecules (gaseous hydrogen halides). His subsequent investigation of the rotational bands on alkali halide crystals (with R. Bowling Barnes, CH Cartwright) brought the first indications of what was later described as multiphonon effects. In 1927 he completed his habilitation. In 1934 he became an associate professor in Berlin (as the successor to the dismissed Peter Pringsheim ), but after the institute in Berlin was switched to military research after the change of management from Walther Nernst to Erich Schumann and the scientific environment deteriorated due to confidentiality regulations in 1938 as a professor for experimental physics to Frankfurt and became director of the physical institute there. His predecessor Karl Wilhelm Meissner , who wanted to bring Czerny to Frankfurt as early as 1934, had previously been dismissed by the National Socialists there. Initially, Czerny had to pay for the equipment for infrared spectroscopy out of his own pocket, as the institute in Frankfurt had previously operated optical spectroscopy. During the Second World War, his institute was largely destroyed by bombing. After the war, he spent six months in military research for the US Navy in California in 1947. After the war he headed the gradual reconstruction of the Physics Institute and retired in 1961. Czerny worked in the beginner internship until 1976. He died in a retirement home in Munich.

By developing new measurement methods and apparatus, Czerny continued the research he had begun by his teacher Rubens into the infrared spectral range from (Rubens') to 300 micrometers wavelength up to around 1400 micrometers. During his time in Berlin he was also known for his work with AF Turner and PhD student V. Plettig on astigmatism of mirror spectrometers. He dealt with the thermal limits of measurement (which was by no means common knowledge in the 1920s), techniques of infrared photography ( evaporography ) and, during World War II, with the sensitivity of the eye to high-intensity infrared (important for the question of why Allied bomber crews obviously used the infrared -Flk headlights could see). The insensitivity to infrared is an adaptation of the visual system to the heat radiation of one's own blood, as Czerny showed in 1949. In 1972 he published an article on changes in the optics and vision of the eye after cataract surgery (for example, higher sensitivity in the ultraviolet). After the Second World War he published about low inertia bolometers , the beginnings of the later alternating light method. He also dealt with application problems in the glass industry (heat conduction through radiation).

In his spare time he played the cello and also made music with Albert Einstein and Max Planck during his time in Berlin .

In 1966 he received an honorary doctorate in Göttingen.

Czerny had been married to Octavia Gaupp since 1934.

Fonts (selection)

In addition to the works cited in the footnotes:

  • Measurements in the rotation spectrum of HCl in the long-wave ultrared, Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 34, 1925, p. 227.
  • On photography in the ultra-red, Z. f. Physics, Volume 53, 1929, p. 1.
  • Measurements on rock salt in the ultra-red to test the dispersion theory, Z. f. Physics, Volume 65, 1930, p. 600.
  • with AF Turner: About the astigmatism in mirror spectrometers, Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 61, 1930, pp. 792–797
  • with V. Plettig: About the astigmatism in mirror spectrometers II, Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 65, 1930, pp. 590-595
  • with H. Röder: Advances in the field of ultrared technology, results of the exact natural sciences, Volume 17, 1938, p. 70.
  • On the aging of physicists , Physikalische Blätter, Volume 21, 1965, pp. 29-33

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Czerny-Turner beam path, Czerny-Turner monochromator or spectrograph
  2. ↑ Marianus Czerny: About the red line of eye sensitivity. In: Journal of Nature Research A . 4, 1949, pp. 521-523 ( PDF , free full text).
  3. ↑ Czerny Physikalisches after a star operation , Physikalische Blätter, Volume 28, 1972, 20, online
  4. ↑ M. Czerny, W. Kofink, W. Lippert: Bolometer low inertia . In: Annals of Physics . 443, 1950, pp. 65-86. doi : 10.1002 / andp.19504430108 .
  5. ↑ Memories of Einstein published by Czerny in Physikalische Blätter, Volume 35, June 1979, Online . At the insistence of his boss Nernst, he had to give a lecture on a critical contribution to the theory of relativity at the colloquium in front of Einstein in Berlin in the 1920s. He then apologized to Einstein, who took it with humor.
personal data
SURNAME Czerny, Marianus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1985
Place of death Munich