Otto Burkard

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Otto Burkard (born November 24, 1908 in Graz ; † January 13, 2015 ) was an Austrian geophysicist and pioneer of space research .

Life

Otto Michael Burkard was born the son of a doctor in Graz. After attending the academic grammar school , he studied experimental physics at the University of Graz and received his doctorate in 1933 with a (handwritten) dissertation 'Air-electric investigations', which was supervised by Professor Hans Benndorf .

After completing his doctorate, Otto Burkard worked on Barkhausen short oscillations . In 1935 he passed the teaching examination for the subject combination of mathematics and physics. From 1935 to 1938 Burkard Rockefeller was a fellow at the Physics Institute of the Technical University in Graz and worked with Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Kohlrausch on the Smekal-Raman effect . In 1938 Burkard went to the BULME as a high school teacher and shifted his research interests to the propagation of radio waves.

In spring 1942 he completed his habilitation at the University of Graz with studies on the ionosphere . Shortly afterwards he was drafted into the German armed forces. At the end of the war he was in charge of a radio observation station in Tromsø , Norway. In 1942 he published a work on the F-layer of the ionosphere and became one of the three discoverers of the equatorial anomaly in the ionosphere together with Hiroshi Maeda and Sir Edward Appleton .

Returning from Norway in 1945, Otto Burkard built the first ion probe in continental Europe. In 1946 he was entrusted with the provisional management of the Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics at the University of Graz, in 1949 he was appointed associate professor and in 1963 full professor . Otto Burkard headed the Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics until his retirement in 1979. In the academic year 1968/69 he was rector of the Karl Franzens University Graz. In 1974 the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) founded the Institute for Space Research in Graz, of which Burkard was managing director from 1974 to 1984.

Otto Burkard wrote over 90 scientific papers that deal primarily with the ionosphere : the influence of the undisturbed earth's magnetic field, tides in the ionosphere, models for the F2 layer, electron density in the course of a solar eclipse, research on plasma and magnetosphere based on satellite observations, mathematical Work on the magnetopause and the dipole field in the magnetosphere. His most outstanding students include the two space pioneers Wilhelm Nordberg and Siegfried Josef Bauer (* 1930), as well as Helmut Pichler, Professor of Meteorology and Geophysics at the University of Innsbruck.

It was given a rare honor by naming an asteroid : the International Astronomical Union (IAU) christened the minor planet 10787 the name "Ottoburkard".

Otto Burkard was married and had four children: Rainer (* 1943), Hildegund (* 1944), Helmut (* 1947) and Hans (* 1952).

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • A geomagnetic length effect of the F-layer ionization . In: Zeitschrift für Geophysik , Vol. 17 (1942), pp. 51–56. ISSN  0044-2801 .
  • Tides in the upper ionosphere . Terr. Mag. Vol. 53, 1948, 273-277. (English translation in Proc. First Meeting, Mixed Commission on Ionosphere, 1949, pp. 103-108).
  • The seasonal height and ionization fluctuations of the F2 layer . High frequency technology and electroacoustics Vol. 60, 1942, 87-96.
  • Study of the geomagnetic effect of the F2 layer . Zeitschrift für Geophysik Vol. 20, 1954, 75-83 (cf. Proc. 4th Meeting, Mixed Commission on Ionosphere, 1955, pp. 115-122).
  • Ionospheric observations for the solar eclipse on February 15, 1961 . Journal of Geophysics Vol. 29, 1963, 123-128.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary
  2. ↑ Named after Julius von Hann (1839–1921).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Burkard, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 2015