Viktor Schumann

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Viktor Schumann
at the age of 52

Viktor Schumann (born December 21, 1841 in Markranstädt , † September 1, 1913 in Leipzig ) was an engineer and amateur physicist who discovered vacuum ultraviolet radiation in 1893 on a private basis .

Life

Viktor Schumann was the son of a doctor. After completing secondary school and doing a traineeship in a mechanical engineering company, he completed an engineering degree at the royal higher trade school in Chemnitz from 1860 to 1864 and then initially joined a mechanical engineering company in Chemnitz. In the following years he built a machine factory with a partner in Leipzig, whose technical management he held until 1872. The focus was on the development of new machine types for the graphic industry, which was booming in Leipzig at the time. In 1872 he became a partner in the respected mechanical engineering company of the Hogenforst brothers and managed the company as technical director until 1892. At this point he retired for health reasons in order to devote himself to his physical research, which he had previously carried out on the side.

Through hard professional work, he had created the financial means for a private research activity, and his mechanical engineering knowledge allowed him to manufacture the necessary precision devices himself. He was soon recognized and honored in official scientific circles. He became an honorary doctor and academician. After his death in 1913, Otto Wiener , director of the Physics Institute at the University of Leipzig, gave the Nekrolog in front of the Saxon Academy of Sciences.

research

The starting point for Schumann's research was the initial insensitivity of photo plates at the short-wave end of visible light. After improvements for practical photography, he was attracted to the continuation of extremely short-wave radiation, which was of particular importance for atomic spectroscopy. For this purpose, both the sensitivity of the photographic plates to this radiation had to be increased and the spectral distribution of the radiation into these areas had to be improved.

He used a prism and lenses made of fluorite instead of quartz , the entire apparatus placed in a vacuum and plated its photographic plates with a very thin photographic emulsion , wherein said light-sensitive silver crystals on top of the gelatin were enriched layer. Since the low wavelength absorbing barriers quartz, gelatine and atmospheric oxygen were removed, Schumann was able to measure radiation with wavelengths below 185 nm to a minimum of 120 nm for the first time.

Schumann published articles on the hydrogen line in the spectrum of the Nova Aurigae and on the spectrum of the vacuum tubes . His work paved the way for atomic emission spectroscopy , which ultimately led to the discovery of the Lyman series by Theodore Lyman in 1914 .

Honors

literature

  • Hans Bomke: Viktor Schumann - On the 100th birthday of the founder of vacuum spectroscopy : In: Die Naturwissenschaften, Volume 29, Issue 49 (1941), pp. 729–734 ( limited preview in the Google book search)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ V. Schumann: Astronomy and astrophysics , Volume 12, Carleton College (Northfield, Minn.). Goodsell Observatory.
  2. ↑ Lyman, T. (1914), Victor Schumann , Astrophysical Journal 38: 1-4, doi: 10.1086 / 142050
  3. ↑ Person Wiki of the SLUB Dresden ( Memento from June 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Hans Bomke: Viktor Schumann ... , p. 734
  5. ↑ Saxon Academy of Sciences: Viktor Schumann, Ing.
personal data
SURNAME Schumann, Viktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schumann, Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Markranstädt
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1913
Place of death Leipzig