Pierre Auger

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Pierre Victor Auger ( oʒe ) (born May 14, 1899 in Paris , † December 24, 1993 ibid) was a French physicist . He worked in the field of atomic and nuclear physics .

Auger was particularly concerned with cosmic rays , which he examined in detail in 1938 at the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland at an altitude of 3,500 m. With several detection devices at a distance of 300 m he was able to measure simultaneous events in neighboring detectors and thus to prove the cosmic origin of the particle showers.

In 1926, while studying the effects of X-rays on matter, he discovered the Auger effect, named after him . However, this radiationless transition was discovered in 1922 by the Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner .

At the end of World War II, Pierre Auger and a handful of other visionary scientists envisioned the establishment of a European atomic physics laboratory. This led to the establishment of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Auger was from 1937 professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and from 1962 to 1967 director general of the European Space Research Organization (ESRO). In 1961 he was awarded the international Antonio Feltrinelli Prize , and in 1971 the Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science.

The multinational Pierre Auger Observatory is named after Auger and has been researching the highest energy cosmic rays since November 2005 in the Pampa Amarilla in Argentina with 1600 particle detectors on 3000 km² and 24 fluorescence telescopes.

Since 1977 he has been a member of the Académie des Sciences .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lise Meitner: About the β-ray spectra and its connection with γ-radiation . In: Journal of Physics A Hadrons and Nuclei . No. 11 , 1922, ISSN  0939-7922 , p. 35-54 , doi : 10.1007 / BF01328399 .
  2. ↑ Michael Krause: Where people and particles collide . Wiley-VCH, 2013, p. 1–63 ( wiley-vch.de [PDF; accessed on July 23, 2019]).
  3. ↑ CERN history - The historical milestones in 60 years of science ( English ) CERN . Retrieved July 23, 2019.

Web links

See also

personal data
SURNAME Auger, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Auger, Pierre Victor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1993
Place of death Paris , France