Paul Urban (physicist)
Paul Oskar Urban (born June 15, 1905 in Purkersdorf ; † February 14, 1995 in Graz ) was an Austrian theoretical physicist who was a professor at the University of Graz .
Life
Urban studied electrical engineering and mechanical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology , graduating as a graduate engineer, then spent two years in the research laboratory of Siemens AG in Berlin and from 1931 at the Austrian Federal Railways as a graduate engineer. He also studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1935 with a thesis on quantum mechanics. At the university he was a student of Hans Thirring . In 1938 he lost his job with the railway and was drafted into military service in 1939, but released in 1940 for health reasons. He was an assistant at the University of Vienna, where he completed his habilitation in 1942 on electron scattering (quantum mechanical scattering theory, represented in Vienna in the 1930s by Eugen Guth and Theodor Sexl ). This also brought him into contact with Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich.
After the war he was given a teaching position at the University of Innsbruck and in 1947 became an associate professor at the University of Graz . There he rebuilt theoretical physics and became a full professor in 1949. He was head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Graz, was a senator of the university and retired in 1975.
In over 100 scientific papers, in the tradition of Sommerfeld, he dealt with a broad spectrum of physics, from classical electrodynamics, quantum mechanics of the solid, quantum mechanical scattering theory, to nuclear physics, reactor physics , quantum electrodynamics and elementary particle physics.
Urban was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences in Brussels and the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts . Urban was president of the Austrian Physical Society .
He was the founding editor of Acta Physica Austriaca and head of the International University Weeks for Nuclear Physics (later for International University Weeks for Theoretical Physics) and the Winter School for Theoretical Physics in Schladming , which have been held annually since 1962 and have an international reputation and their conference contributions in supplement Volumes of Acta Physica Austriaca appear.
Paul Urban is buried in the St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz .
Heinrich Mitter is one of his doctoral students .
Awards
- 1972 Erwin Schrödinger Prize from the Austrian Academy of Sciences
- 1973 Science Prize of the State of Lower Austria
- Large silver medal for services to the Republic of Austria
- Great gold medal of the state of Styria
Fonts
- Topics in Applied Quantum Electrodynamics, Springer 1970. 265 pp.
literature
- Heinrich Mitter, N. Pucker: Paul Urban 70 years old. Physikalische Blätter, Volume 31, 1975, pp. 316-318, doi : 10.1002 / phbl.19750310707
- Urban, Paul. In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie , 2nd edition, Volume 10, De Gruyter Saur, Munich 2011, p. 200 ( full text in the Google book search)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Topics in Applied Quantum Electrodynamics, Paul Urban Stanley J. Brodsky, Review, Physics Today, p. 91, January 1, 1973, accessed August 31, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Urban, Paul |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Urban, Paul Oskar (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian theoretical physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 15, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Purkersdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 14, 1995 |
| Place of death | Graz |