Wladyslaw Natanson

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Władysław Natanson (born June 18, 1864 in Warsaw , † February 26, 1937 in Krakow ) was a Polish physicist and pioneer of quantum statistics .

Natanson came from a Jewish banking and industrial family, his father Ludwik was a doctor with scientific interests. Władysław Natanson and his brother Edward also developed scientific interests as young people and they found recognition in Paris in 1880 when they presented a paper on chemical valence. From 1882 Natanson studied in Saint Petersburg with Dmitri Mendeleev , among others , but also heard mathematics with Andrei Andrejewitsch Markow . In 1886 he went to Cambridge University to continue his studies , where he met Joseph John Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory . In 1887 he received his master's degree in physics from the University of Dorpat and received his doctorate there in 1888 under Arthur von Oettingen on kinetic gas theory . He then went to the University of Graz and heard lectures by Ludwig Boltzmann . A habilitation at Boltzmann that Natanson was aiming for did not materialize. After returning to Warsaw, he published an introduction to theoretical physics in 1890 and completed his habilitation in 1891 at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , then part of Austria-Hungary (Natanson himself had Russian citizenship at the time, as Warsaw was part of Russia). In the same year he began to teach as a private lecturer . In 1894 he became an associate professor in Cracow and in 1899 an associate professor, both after lengthy negotiations between the university and Vienna.

Natanson initially dealt with kinetic gas theory and thermodynamics of irreversible processes , later with electron theory , optics (such as the scattering of light in gases) and finally quantum mechanics . In 1911 he recognized that Planck's quantum theory of radiation required a new kind of statistics with indistinguishable particles and was thus a pioneer of quantum statistics (in this case, Bose-Einstein statistics ). Paul Ehrenfest and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes argued similarly in 1915, and finally Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein in 1924. Einstein corresponded with Natanson, but in this case was not inspired by him (but by Bose). He had personal contact with Einstein when he was living with his family in Berlin in 1914/15 because of the chaos of the war.

He taught theoretical physics in Krakow until 1934, including giving the first lectures on quantum mechanics in Krakow in 1930/31. He wrote several textbooks and four volumes of essays on philosophy and the history of physics.

Leopold Infeld was one of his students in Cracow . According to Infeld, he was isolated in science and in life and kept his distance from others, which, according to Infeld, also impaired the full development of his personality as a scientist.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Władysław Natanson: About the statistical theory of radiation. In: Physikalische Zeitschrift . Volume 12, 1911, pp. 659-666.
  2. ↑ P. Ehrenfest, H. Kamerlingh Onnes: Simplified derivation of the combinatorial formula on which Planck's radiation theory is based . In: Annals of Physics . tape 351 , no. 7 , 1915, pp. 1021-1024 , doi : 10.1002 / andp.19153510709 .
  3. ↑ Infeld, quoted in Pyenson, review of Friedrich Hund's History of Quantum Theory , Historia Mathematica, Volume 2, 1975, p. 371. He was lonely both in science and in life and the impersonality of his relations with people was his protective armor. .. As a result of his isolation, his lack of personal contact, he didn´t develop to his full scientific capacity . Infeld Szkice z Przeszlosci , Warsaw, Panstwowy Instytut Wydanwniczy, 1964
personal data
SURNAME Natanson, Wladyslaw
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish physicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1937
Place of death Krakow