Paul Scherrer

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Paul Scherrer, in London in 1934

Paul Hermann Scherrer (born February 3, 1890 in St. Gallen , † September 25, 1969 in Zurich ) was a Swiss physicist .

life and work

Paul Scherrer was the son of the businessman and painter Hermann Scherrer and Ida Zürcher. He attended the Federal School of Commerce and Transport in St. Gallen and initially studied botany for two semesters at the ETH Zurich from 1908 , but then switched to physics and mathematics. In 1912 he continued his studies in Königsberg , then he went to Göttingen . There, in 1916, in collaboration with Peter Debye, he developed an experimental method for determining the structure of crystals in powder form using X-rays, the so-called Debye-Scherrer method to this day . Debye and Scherrer later transferred this to liquids (colloids) and inorganic compounds, with inferences about their atomic structure, for example the structure of lithium fluoride from ionized lithium and fluorine atoms (1918), which was not clear at the time. He received his doctorate in 1916 under the direction of Debyes on the Faraday effect of the hydrogen molecule ( The rotational dispersion of hydrogen: A contribution to the knowledge of the constitution of the hydrogen molecule ). From 1918 he received a private lectureship in Göttingen, in 1920 he became full professor for experimental physics at the ETH Zurich (where he followed Peter Debye, who became professor there in 1920), from 1927 head of experimental physics at the ETH Zurich and director of the physical institute, the he helped to international recognition with the theorist Wolfgang Pauli . In the 1920s he turned to solid state physics (magnetism, piezoelectricity, ferroelectrics). His X-ray studies of salts of complex compounds confirmed Alfred Werner's theories about their structure . From the 1930s he turned increasingly to nuclear physics . In 1940, under his direction at the ETH Zurich with the support of the companies Oerlikon and Brown, Boveri & Cie. built a cyclotron . He was considered an excellent organizer with a talent for the acquisition of research funds and teachers with many students who also attracted non-physicists with his perfect lecture experiments.

During the Second World War, Scherrer worked with the US intelligence service OSS ( Allen W. Dulles and Moe Berg in Bern), to whom he provided crucial information on the status of the development of the atomic bomb in Nazi Germany due to his close contacts with the German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg . After the Second World War , he was involved in the founding of the CERN research center near Geneva in 1954 and worked in various institutions and committees for the dissemination of nuclear energy in Switzerland: in 1946 he became president of the newly established study commission for atomic energy SKA , which aimed to implement a Swiss nuclear weapons program , and in 1955 he was involved in the founding of Reaktor AG in Würenlingen , which was merged into the Federal Institute for Reactor Research in 1960 and this in 1988 into the Paul Scherrer Institute. From 1958 he was President of the Swiss Commission for Atomic Sciences . Together with the banker Walter Boveri, Scherrer played a key role in Switzerland's nuclear policy. he determined the essential. Lines of switzerland. Post-war nuclear policy. In 1960 he retired and took on a teaching position at the University of Basel . In 1969 Scherrer died as a result of a riding accident. He was buried in the Fluntern cemetery.

He mainly worked in the fields of X-ray and cosmic radiation , magnetism and nuclear physics .

In 1912 he married Ina Sonderegger. His daughter is the classical archaeologist Ines Jucker . Most of his estate was destroyed at his own request.

Honors

In 1938 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Since 1950 he has been a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and since 1960 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was an eight-time honorary doctor and received the Marcel Benoist Prize in 1943.

The Debye-Scherrer method, the Scherrer equation and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) for basic research in the natural and engineering sciences are named after him. In addition, the asteroid (45305) Paulscherrer has been named after him since 2006 . The mineral Paulscherrerite bears his name in recognition of his contributions to the fields of mineralogy and nuclear physics.

Fonts

  • with Peter Stoll: physical exercises, 3 volumes, BI university pocket books, Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim, 1962 to 1964

literature

  • Hans Frauenfelder , Oskar Huber, Peter Stähelin (eds.): Contributions to the development of physics. Ceremony for the 70th birthday of Professor Paul Scherrer , Basel 1960
  • Hans Frauenfelder, Rolf Steffen: Paul Scherrer , Physics Today, Volume 23, January 1970, pp. 129-133
  • P. Huber: Professor Dr. Paul Scherrer , Helvetica Physica Acta, Volume 43, 1970, pp. 3-8
  • Kurt Alder (Ed.): Paul Scherrer 1890-1969 , Paul Scherrer Institute 1990
  • Helge Kragh : Scherrer, Paul Hermann , Dictionary of Scientific Biography , Supplement 2, 1990, pp. 784-785
  • H. Völkle: The physicist Prof. Paul Scherrer (1890-1969) , in: Toggenburger Annalen, Volume 3, 1976, pp. 41-49
  • H. Wäffler: Nuclear physics at the ETH Zurich at the time of Paul Scherrer , in: Quarterly journal of the Natural Research Society Zurich, Volume 137, 1992, pp. 143–176
  • Horst Kant :  Scherrer, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , pp. 704 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Erwin Neuenschwander : Scherrer, Paul. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Tobias Wildi: The dream of your own reactor. The Swiss Atomic Technology Development 1945-1969 , Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2003

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Debye, Scherrer: Interferences on randomly oriented particles in X-ray light , Nachrichten Kgl. Ges. Wiss. Göttingen, 1916, pp. 1-26, and Physikalische Zeitschrift, Volume 17, 1916, pp. 277-283, Volume 18, 1917, pp. 291-301
  2. ↑ Helge Kragh, Article Scherrer in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  3. ↑ N. Dawidoff, The Catcher was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, 1994
  4. ↑ Scherrer's Secret World Week No. 32/2011
  5. ^ A b Entry Paul Scherrer in the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland by Erwin Neuenschwander , see web links
  6. ↑ Paul Scherrer on the pages of the ETH Zurich library, accessed on March 22, 2020
  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. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 212.
  8. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 56962
personal data
SURNAME Scherrer, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scherrer, Paul Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Gallen , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1969
Place of death Zurich , Switzerland