Otto Stern (physicist)

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Portrait photo of Otto Stern

Otto M. Stern (born February 17, 1888 in Sohrau , Upper Silesia ; died August 17, 1969 in Berkeley ) was a German physicist who emigrated to the USA in 1933 and was a Nobel Prize winner (1943).

family

His parents were the mill owner Oscar Stern (1850-1919), who had been in Breslau since 1892, and Eugenie, née Rosenthal (1863-1907), who came from Rawitsch in Posen. Otto Stern had one brother and three sisters. His niece was the chemist Lieselotte Templeton . His grandfather, Abraham Stern, had five children from his first marriage to Nanni, née Freund, including Heinrich Stern (1833–1908), the father of the physician Richard Stern , who in turn was the grandfather of the historian Fritz Stern . In his second marriage, Abraham Stern was married to Berta Bender, with whom he had six more children, Oscar Stern being the third of these children. Otto Stern was unmarried all his life.

The abbreviation Otto M. Stern only appears in the retirement document of the Carnegie Institution, otherwise only the first name Otto appears in all documents.

Life

Otto Stern attended the mixed-denominational Johannesgymnasium Breslau . He came from a wealthy Jewish family that included grain merchants and mill owners. This later gave Stern financial independence in the scientific community. After graduating from high school in Breslau in 1906, he began studying mathematics and natural sciences, including with Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich, in Freiburg and at the University of Breslau. He heard experimental physics from Otto Lummer and Ernst Pringsheim . In particular, however, he learned statistical mechanics and thermodynamics through self-study from the writings of Ludwig Boltzmann , Rudolf Clausius and Walther Nernst . He received his doctorate in physical chemistry from Otto Sackur in 1912 at the University of Breslau (with a dissertation on the osmotic pressure of carbon dioxide in concentrated solutions). In the same year he went to Albert Einstein at Charles University in Prague and finally followed him in 1913 to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich , where he habilitated in 1913 in physical chemistry . With Einstein - who at the beginning of his career as a physicist was considered a specialist in thermodynamics - he worked in particular on problems of statistical mechanics. A lifelong friendship formed a bond with him. In Zurich he also came into contact with Paul Ehrenfest and Max von Laue . The following year he went to the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , where he habilitated in 1915 in theoretical physics . He remained in Frankfurt as a lecturer in theoretical physics until 1921, interrupted by military service in World War I, in which he volunteered immediately after the outbreak of war and served on the Russian front, first as a private and then as a non-commissioned officer in technical employment. Max Born made sure that he was assigned to a research department at the University of Berlin. In 1919 he received the title of professor and was an assistant to Max Born in Frankfurt. During this time he turned from theoretical physics to experimental physics. In 1921 Stern received a call to an associate professorship for theoretical physics at the University of Rostock , where he remained until 1922. One reason for the change was anti-Semitism in Frankfurt (the physicist and university rector Richard Wachsmuth did not want to give him a regular professorship for this reason). In 1923 he was appointed professor and director of the newly founded institute for physical chemistry at the University of Hamburg . A close friendship with his colleagues, the astronomer Walter Baade , the mathematician Erich Hecke and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli (who was still aspiring at the time) began in Hamburg . His post-doctoral fellows there included Isidor Isaac Rabi and Ronald GJ Fraser . In 1930/31 he was dean of the University of Hamburg and from 1931 to 1932 a member of the university senate. In 1931 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Otto Stern and Lise Meitner , 1937
Plaque at the University of Hamburg
Memorial plaque in Frankfurt, at the building of the Physical Society

Because of his Jewish origins, he emigrated to the USA in 1933 and became a US citizen in 1939. From 1933 until his retirement in 1945 he was a research professor of physics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh . He retired in California the following year. He died of a heart attack while going to the movies in 1969.

plant

An early interest of Stern was statistical mechanics and the concept of entropy. In 1924 he published his model of the electrochemical double layer , now known by his name.

Much of Stern's work is based on his molecular beam method, which was also of fundamental importance for the further development of experimental physics and quantum physics. The molecular or atomic beam method itself came from Louis Dunoyer de Segonzac (1911). Stern's original publications on this were for measuring Maxwell's mean thermal velocity.

The Stern-Volmer equation goes back to a collaboration with Max Volmer at the Berlin Physicochemical Institute. In 1913 he published with Albert Einstein in the Annals of Physics on the zero -point energy .

In Stern's experiment , he measured the speed of atoms directly for the first time. In February 1922, together with Walther Gerlach , he carried out the Stern-Gerlach experiment to prove directional quantization, the quantization of angular momentum, at the Physical Society in Frankfurt am Main (predicted in 1916 by Peter Debye and Arnold Sommerfeld ). With Gerlach he also proved that atoms have a magnetic moment. Together with Gerlach, he experimentally determined the Bohr magneton on the silver atom for the first time.

He succeeded in demonstrating interference in atomic beams and in measuring the de Broglie relationship in atomic beams. He was the first to measure the magnetic moment of the proton and deuteron.

His collaborators included Walther Gerlach , Otto Robert Frisch , and Immanuel Estermann .

Memberships and Honors

Stern received the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physics in "recognition of his contribution to the development of the molecular beam method and for his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton " . Directional quantization was not mentioned, but reviewer Erik Hulthén highlighted directional quantization in a report on Swedish radio in December 1944. Between 1901 and 1950 he was the physicist with the highest number of nominations for the Nobel Prize, with 82 nominations.

The University of Frankfurt honored Otto Stern by naming the central lecture hall and library building on the new Riedberg campus after him as the Otto Stern Center . The Stern-Gerlach-Medal of the DPG is named after him and Gerlach. In 2013, the asteroid (14468) Ottostern was named after Otto Stern.

In 1960 he received an honorary doctorate from ETH Zurich . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1945), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1940), the American Philosophical Society , the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , from which he retired in the Nazi era had been excluded and which he later did not re-enter.

writings

  • Horst Schmidt-Böcking, Karin Reich, Alan Templeton, Wolfgang Trageser, Volkmar Vill (eds.): Otto Stern's publications. 5 volumes, Springer Spectrum 2016.
  • Horst Schmidt-Böcking, Alan Templeton, Wolfgang Trageser: Otto Stern's Collected Letters. Volume 1, Springer Spectrum 2018.
  • A direct measurement of thermal molecular velocity. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 2, 1920, pp. 49-56.
  • A way to experimental directional quantization in the magnetic field. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 7, 1921, pp. 249-253.
  • with W. Gerlach: The experimental proof of the magnetic moment of the silver atom. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 8, 1921, pp. 110-111.
  • with W. Gerlach: The experimental proof of the directional quantization in the magnetic field. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 9, 1922, pp. 349-352.
  • with W. Gerlach: The magnetic moment of the silver atom. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 9, 1922, pp. 353-355.

literature

  • Horst Schmidt-Böcking and Karin Reich : Otto Stern. Physicist, lateral thinker, Nobel Prize winner. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-942921-23-7 .
  • Peter Toennies, Horst Schmidt-Boecking, Bretislav Friedrich, Julian Lower: Otto Stern (1888–1969) – the founding father of experimental atomic physics. In: Annals of Physics. Volume 523, 2011, pp. 1045–1070.
  • Bretislav Friedrich, Dudley Herschbach: Stern and Gerlach – how a bad cigar helped reorient atomic physics. In: Physics Today. December 2003, p. 57 ( digitalisate , PDF on physlab.lums.edu.pk).
  • Emilio Segré: Otto Stern 1888-1969. Biographical Memoirs National Academy of Sciences, ( digitized , PDF on nasonline.org).
  • Dieter Hoffmann:  Otto Stern. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-428-11206-7 , p. 281 f. ( digital copy ).
  • Horst Schmidt-Böcking, Wolfgang Trageser: An almost forgotten pioneer . The molecular beam method developed by Otto Stern is essential for physics and chemistry. In: Physics Journal . Wiley-VCH Verlag Chemie, March 2012, p. 47–51 ( pro-physik.de [PDF]).

itemizations

  1. ↑ Horst Schmidt-Böcking, Alan Templeton, Wolfgang Trageser: Otto Stern's collected letters . tape 1 : University career and the time of National Socialism . Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-662-55735-8 , p. 437 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ↑ Lt. Great-niece Diana Templeton-Killian.
  3. ↑ a b Schmidt-Böcking et al. (ed.): Otto Stern's collected letters. Volume 1, Springer Spectrum 2018, p. 325 (Extract: books.google.de ).
  4. ↑ Portrait at Jewish Monuments Frankfurt ( Memento of June 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Nancy Greenspan: Max Born. Spectrum Verlag, p. 83.
  6. ↑ Astrid Ludwig, The Forgotten Nobel Prize Winner , Frankfurter Rundschau, December 28, 2010, Horst Schmidt-Böcking on Otto Stern.
  7. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, philological-historical class. Episode 3, volume 246 = treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, mathematical-physical class. Episode 3. Volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Goettingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 233.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Walter : Otto Stern: Achievement and Destiny . In: Communications, Society of German Chemists . tape 3 , 1989 ( gdch.de [PDF]).
  9. ^ a b Emilio Segre : Otto Stern 1888-1969 . In: National Academy of Sciences (ed.): Biographical Memoirs . 1973 (English, nasonline.org [PDF; 1000 kb ]).
  10. ↑ Otto Stern: On the theory of the electrolytic double layer . In: German Bunsen Society for Applied Physical Chemistry, Erich Müller (ed.): Journal of Electrochemistry . tape 30 , no. 21-22 . Wiley-VCH Verlag, November 1924, ISSN  0372-8323 , pp. 508-516 , doi : 10.1002/bbpc.192400182 ( knowledge.electrochem.org [PDF]).
  11. ↑ Otto Stern: A Direct Measurement of Thermal Molecular Velocity . In: Physical Journal . tape 21 , 1920, p. 582 .
  12. ↑ Otto Stern: A Direct Measurement of Thermal Molecular Velocity . In: Journal of Physics . tape 2 , no. 1 , February 1920, ISSN  1434-6001 , pp. 49-56 , doi : 10.1007/BF01333787 .
  13. ↑ Stern, Volmer, About the decay time of fluorescence. Physical Journal, Volume 20, 1919, pp. 183–188.
  14. ↑ Einstein, Stern, Some arguments for the assumption of molecular agitation at absolute zero, Annalen der Physik, vol. 40, 1913, pp. 629–632.
  15. ↑ Stern, Gerlach, The experimental proof of directional quantization in the magnetic field, ZfPhysik, 9, 1922, 349-352. The experiment was suggested by Stern, A way to experimentally test directional quantization in the magnetic field, Z. f. Physik, Volume 7, 1921, pp. 249-253.
  16. ↑ For the experiment itself, however, Debye did not expect proof of directional quantization and Sommerfeld only expected a semi-classical result. Only Bohr and Max Born (then also in Frankfurt) expected a positive result. Gerlach and Stern were open to the result. Gerlach, Memoirs of Albert Einstein 1908–1930, Physical Leaves Volume 35, 1979, Issue 3, pp. 97f.
  17. ↑ Walther Gerlach, Otto Stern: The experimental proof of the magnetic moment of the silver atom . In: Journal of Physics . tape 8 , no. 1 , December 1922, ISSN  1434-6001 , pp. 110–111 , doi : 10.1007/BF01329580 ( positron.physics.uni-halle.de [PDF]).
  18. ↑ Walther Gerlach, Otto Stern: The magnetic moment of the silver atom . In: Journal of Physics . tape 9 , no. 1 , December 1922, ISSN  1434-6001 , pp. 353-355 , doi : 10.1007/BF01326984 .
  19. ↑ Otto Robert Frisch, Stern, Diffraction of Matter Rays, Handbook of Physics , Volume 22, Part 2, Springer 1933.
  20. ↑ Stern, Diffraction of molecular beams at the lattice of a crystal cleavage surface, Die Naturwissenschaften, 17, 1929, p. 391.
  21. ↑ Frisch, Stern, About the magnetic deflection of hydrogen molecules and the magnetic moment of the proton, Part 1, Z. f. Physics, Volume 85, 1933, pp. 4-16, Part 2 with Estermann, pp. 17-24.
  22. ↑ Stern, Estermann, About the magnetic deflection of isotopic hydrogen molecules and the magnetic moment of the "deuton". Z. f. Physik, Volume 86, 1933, pp. 132-134.
  23. ↑ Otto Stern's publications. Springer Spectrum, Volume 1, 2016, p. 28.
  24. ↑ Mammoth project: The future of the university has already begun. (No longer available online.) In: fr-online.de . 2011 June 27, archived from the original on 2014 December 19 ; retrieved December 19, 2014 .

web links

Commons : Otto Stern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stern, Otto M.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American physicist
BIRTH DATE February 17, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Sohrau , Upper Silesia
DATE OF DEATH Aug. 17, 1969
PLACE OF DEATH Berkeley , California , United States