Victor Franz Hess

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Victor Franz Hess
Victor Hess in 1915
Victor Hess in 1916
Middle building: The measuring station at Innsbruck's Hafelekar
Original Steinke apparatus on the Hafelekar for measuring cosmic rays

Victor Franz Hess (born June 24, 1883 in Waldstein Castle near Deutschfeistritz , Styria , † December 17, 1964 in Mount Vernon , New York ) was an Austrian physicist. For the discovery of cosmic rays he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 .

Life

Hess was the son of Vinzenz Heß († April 6, 1917 in Graz : age: 74), initially a forester in the service of Karl Anselm Kraft Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein (1796–1871), most recently forest adviser and director of the domain of Karl Heinrich Graf Bardeau (1878-1941). His mother was Seraphine Großbauer Edle von Waldstätt († October 8, 1913 in Graz: Age: 72), a daughter of the forestry teacher Franz Großbauer Edler von Waldstätt . Hess received his training entirely in Graz - from 1893 to 1901 in grammar school, then at Karl-Franzens University , where he received his doctorate in 1906 " Sub auspiciis Imperatoris ".

In 1906 and 1907 he worked at the Mineralogical Institute of the University of Vienna. From 1908 to 1920 he was an honorary professor for medical physics at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna (today: University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna ). In 1937 he received an honorary doctorate from this university.

From 1910 to 1920 he worked after a short time at the 2nd Physics Institute of the University of Vienna , where Egon Schweidler introduced him to the latest findings in the field of radioactivity , at the newly founded Institute for Radium Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences as an assistant to Stefan Meyer . During the First World War , Hess headed the X-ray department of a reserve hospital.

On one of his balloon ascents of him from Usti nad Labem in Bohemia after Pieskow in Brandenburg led, Hess discovered on August 7, 1912, the cosmic rays, which he still cosmic radiation called. He was referring to the unpublished data (since a measurement error was suspected) of the physicist Karl Bergwitz , who had already registered them in 1908. He published the discovery in the Physikalische Zeitschrift .

In 1919 Hess was appointed associate professor at the University of Graz, only to work a short time later in the USA for two years, where he a. a. worked on the medical application of radium . Back in Graz, however, due to lack of financial means, he mainly dealt with air electricity . From 1931 as a professor at the University of Innsbruck , where he headed the newly established Institute for Radiation Research , but also had to undergo a thumb amputation and an operation on the larynx due to radium burns he had suffered in Vienna. The measuring station at Hafelekar in Innsbruck for the observation of cosmic rays goes back to his initiative .

In 1936, together with Carl David Anderson , Hess received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the work that led to the discovery of cosmic rays in Vienna in 1912. In 1937 he was again appointed to the Karl Franzens University in Graz.

As a cosmopolitan person and an active Catholic , Hess acknowledged his rejection of National Socialism . After Austria was annexed to the German Reich, Hess was arrested on short notice. On May 28, 1938, at the age of 55, he was initially put into provisional retirement and finally released in September 1938 without notice and without any pension entitlement. In addition, he was forced to exchange the Nobel Prize money he had received in Sweden and invested there for German Reich treasure bills. In the same year he emigrated with his Jewish wife to the USA, where he continued his work at Fordham University in New York City . In 1944 he received US citizenship. After the Second World War, he traveled several times to Vienna and Innsbruck.

Victor Hess is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in White Plains, New York .

Awards (excerpt)

  • On July 12, 2014 the asteroid (361530) Victorfranzhess , which was discovered by Richard Gierlinger in the Gaisberg observatory, was named after him.

Publications (excerpt)

literature

Audiovisual media

Web links

Commons : Victor Franz Hess  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. From town and country. (…) The first results of the ultra-radiation research station on the Hafelekar. In:  Tiroler Anzeiger. With the evening edition: “IZ-Innsbrucker Zeitung” and the illustrated weekly supplement: “Weltguck” , No. 108/1933 (XXVI. Year), May 10, 1933, p. 7, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / maintenance / tan.
  2. Peter Illetschko: 100 Years of Cosmic Radiation: Balloonists in Radiant Heights , derstandard.at, accessed on March 14, 2012.
  3. Daily news. (...) Died. In:  Wiener Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung. Illustrated newspaper for the whole of agriculture , No. 30/1917 (LXVII. Volume), April 14, 1917, p. 211, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wlz,
    Daily report. (...) funeral. In:  Grazer Tagblatt , Abend-Ausgabe, No. 97/1917 (XXVII. Year), April 10, 1917, p. 2, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / gtb.
  4. ↑ Daily report. (...) deaths. In:  Grazer Tagblatt , morning edition, No. 277/1913 (XXIIIth year), October 9, 1913, p. 2, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / gtb.
  5. Rudolf Steinmaurer:  Hess, Victor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 12-14 ( digitized version ).
  6. Professors at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna (ed.): 200 years of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. 1968. page 37
  7. Keck, G: Prof. Victor Hess - 80 years. Vienna Veterinary Monthly 50 1963 641
  8. ^ Keck, G In memoriam Victor F. Hess Wiener Tierärztliche Monatsschrift 52 (1965) 1
  9. Viktor Franz Hess: About observations of penetrating radiation during seven free balloon trips (PDF; 5.0 MB). In: Physikalische Zeitschrift 13, 1912, pp. 1084-1091.
  10. Peter Maria Schuster: Grave site of Victor Franz Hess in the USA . In: victorfhess.org , December 4, 2008, accessed March 14, 2012.
  11. ^ Austrian Academy of Sciences (ed.): Ceremonial prelude to the Victor Franz Hess Year 2012 ( Memento from January 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  12. ^ Austrian Academy of Sciences (ed.): Auf ins All - successful balloon launch in Graz ( Memento from August 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ).