Peter Jensen (physicist)

Peter Herbert Jensen (born November 28, 1913 in Göttingen ; † August 17, 1955 in Quend-Plage-Les-Pins , northern France) was a German experimental physicist who studied the cross- sections of neutrons and particle accelerators .

Jensen studied physics from 1932 to 1938 at the University of Göttingen and the University of Freiburg . He received his doctorate in 1938 in Göttingen under Georg Joos . From 1939 to 1945 he was Walther Bothe's teaching assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg . During this time he was a member of the uranium project , which aimed at the technical use of nuclear fission . As part of this activity, he published five articles in the nuclear physics research reports classified as top secret .

In 1943 he completed his habilitation at the University of Heidelberg . The subject of his habilitation thesis was the cross-sections of neutrons in neutron scattering experiments. After the end of the war, Walther Bothe continued to work as a teaching assistant at the University of Freiburg . In 1947 he became a private lecturer there, then an associate professor in 1951. During this time he worked on setting up a Van de Graaff accelerator for nuclear physics experiments. In 1954 he became department head at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and associate professor at the University of Mainz .

literature

• Wolfgang Gentner:  Jensen, Peter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 403 f. ( Digitized version ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Hentschel, Ann. M. Hentschel: Physics and national socialism: an anthology of primary sources . Birkhäuser, 1996, ISBN 3-7643-5312-0 , p. XXXII, Appendix F (English).
2. ↑ Mark Walker : German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1939-1949 . Cambridge, 1993, ISBN 0-521-43804-7 , pp. 268-274 .