Marietta blue

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Memorial plaque for Marietta Blau in Rahlgasse (Vienna-Mariahilf)

Marietta Blau (born April 29, 1894 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † January 27, 1970 in Vienna) was an Austrian physicist .

Life

Marietta Blau was the daughter of the lawyer and music publisher Mayer (Markus) Blau and his wife Florentine, née Goldzweig. After graduating from the girls' high school of the Association for Extended Women's Education ( Rahlgasse ) in 1914, Marietta Blau studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna from 1914 to 1918 . Her doctorate took place in 1919 on the subject of " On the absorption of divergent γ radiation ". Her scientific mentors in Vienna were Franz-Serafin Exner , Philipp Furtwängler and Stefan Meyer .

Since an academic career in Austria initially seemed impossible to her after the First World War , she worked from 1920 to 1921 in the X-ray tube factory in Fürstenau in Berlin. She then went to the Institute for Physical Basics of Medicine at the University of Frankfurt , where she was mainly involved in teaching future doctors in X-ray physics. In 1923 she returned to Vienna, where her mother was seriously ill. From 1923 she worked as a freelance, ie unpaid research assistant at the Institute for Radium Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. She was supported financially by her family and kept afloat financially through small scientific auxiliary activities. Research stays in Göttingen with Robert Wichard Pohl and at the Radium Institute in Paris (1932/1933) were made possible by a grant from the Association of Women Academics in Austria.

During her years in Vienna, Blau was mainly concerned with the photographic method of detecting individual particles. The methodological goals that she pursued were the identification of the particles, especially alpha particles and protons, and the determination of their energy based on the trajectories they cause in emulsions. For this, Blau and her colleague Hertha Wambacher received the Haitinger Prize in 1936 and the Lieben Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1937 . As the highlight of their joint work, the two discovered in 1937 in photo plates that had been exposed to cosmic radiation at an altitude of 2,300 m, "shattering stars", which are star-shaped particle traces from nuclear reactions ( spallation events ) of the particles of cosmic radiation with nuclei of photographic ones Emulsion.

In 1938, shortly before the “ Anschluss ” , Blau was forced to emigrate from Austria because of her Jewish descent, which meant a serious collapse in her academic career. She first turned to Oslo, where she worked at the Chemical Institute in Ellen Gleditsch's laboratory , but then went to the Technical University in Mexico City through the outbreak of World War II through Albert Einstein . Since the conditions in Mexico made research very difficult, she took the opportunity in 1944 to move to the USA. For about ten years she had few opportunities for long, serious academic work, while her half-finished work left behind in Vienna was continued and in some cases published by her colleagues there, some of whom were Nazi-minded, without mentioning her name.

In the USA, Blau worked in industry until 1948 and then worked at scientific institutions ( Columbia University , Brookhaven National Laboratory , University of Miami ) until 1960 . She was responsible for the application of the photographic method for particle detection in high-energy experiments at particle accelerators. Together with Wambacher, it was proposed by Erwin Schrödinger for the Nobel Prize in Physics. However, this received Cecil Powell , whose work was largely inspired by those of Blau and Wambacher. In his Nobel Prize address Powell made no mention of the two scientists.

In 1960, Blau returned to Austria, where, despite poor health, she continued her research at the Radium Institute for unpaid until 1964. She headed a working group that analyzed photographic recordings of particle traces from experiments at CERN , and was also supervising a dissertation in this area. In 1962, the Austrian Academy of Sciences awarded Blau the Erwin Schrödinger Prize , but the Academy was not accepted.

In 1970 Marietta Blau died of cancer in Vienna, completely impoverished. Her illness has been linked to years of unprotected work with radioactive substances and to cigarette smoking. No obituary appeared in any scientific journal.

In 2004 a memorial plaque was unveiled at her former grammar school at Rahlgasse 2 and the City of Vienna named Marietta-Blau-Gasse in the 22nd district after her. In 2005 the University of Vienna named a hall in its main building after Marietta Blau.

Marietta Blau Scholarship

The Austrian Exchange Service Society (OeAD) supports research stays of doctoral students abroad with a Marietta Blau scholarship.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ruth Lewin Sime: Marietta Blau in the history of cosmic rays . physicstoday Oct 2012 doi : 10.1063 / PT.3.1728
  2. ↑ Memorial plaque for the nuclear physicist Marietta Blau . In correspondence with the town hall dated November 8, 2004.
  3. ^ Marietta-Blau-Gasse in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  4. ^ Marietta Blau scholarship.

literature

  • B. Strohmaier:  Blue, Marietta . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).
  • Robert Rosner and Brigitte Strohmaier (eds.): Marietta Blau. Stars of shattering. Biography of a pioneer of modern particle physics. Böhlau, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-205-77088-9 , (series: Contributions to the history of science and science research; 3).
  • Brigitte Strohmaier and Robert Rosner: Marietta Blau. Stars of Disintegration. Biography of a Pioneer of Particle Physics Ariadne, Riverside, California 2006, ISBN 978-1-57241-147-0 .
  • Leopold Halpern: Mariette Blau (1894–1970). In: Women in Chemistry and Physics , Eds. Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose & Miriam H. Rafailovich, Westport CT, London 1993
  • Brigitte Bischof: Blue, Marietta. In: Brigitta Keintzel, Ilse Korotin (ed.): Scientists in and from Austria. Life - work - work. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-205-99467-1 , pp. 66–69.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Blue, Marietta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1970
Place of death Vienna