Walther Roth

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Walther Adolf Roth (born December 30, 1873 in Berlin , † March 30, 1950 in Braunschweig ) was a German chemist ( physical chemistry ). He was a professor at the TH Braunschweig .

His father Justus Roth was the son of a pharmacist in Hamburg and professor of geology in Berlin. His mother was a daughter of Adolf Trendelenburg . He studied natural sciences in Tübingen, with Ferdinand Braun and Lothar Meyer , among others , where he turned to chemistry and continued his studies in Berlin, where he studied with Emil Fischer and Emil Warburg , Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Hans Heinrich Landolt . In 1897 he received his doctorate under Hans Jahn (1853-1906) (on the solubility of nitrogen oxide in solutions of non-electrolytes and electrolytes with different degrees of dissociation).

He then became Jahn's assistant and qualified as a professor in 1903 (precision cryoscopy of non-electrolytes). When Walter Nernst took over the Institute for Physical Chemistry as Landolt's successor in 1904, Roth became his assistant and set up a physico-chemical internship, which resulted in a textbook. In 1906 he became an associate professor for physical chemistry in Greifswald and in 1919 he became a full professor for physical chemistry in Braunschweig. In 1938 he retired.

He then continued his research at the University Clinic in Freiburg, where he had better laboratory conditions than in Braunschweig and was able to correct some incorrect measurements caused by the cramped laboratory. In the bombing raids on Freiburg he lost all documents and laboratory equipment and continued his work with the support of Hoffmann-La Roche near Basel. In 1948 he returned to Braunschweig terminally ill.

He is particularly known for his precise measurements in thermochemistry (e.g. measuring the heat of combustion with calorimeters and heat of reaction).

He was editor of the Landolt-Börnstein and the chemist's calendar.

In 1932 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . In 1937 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

In 1935 he received the Liebig commemorative coin .

Fonts

  • with Fritz Eisenlohr: Refractometric auxiliary book. Veit, Leipzig 1911. 2nd edition: De Gruyter 1952 (revised by Eisenlohr, Fritz Löwe).
  • Basics of chemistry with a special focus on inorganic chemistry and technology. Vieweg 1925.
  • Physico-chemical exercises. 1907. 4th edition: Voss, Leipzig 1928.
  • Basics of chemistry for engineers. 2nd Edition. Vieweg 1928.
  • Thermochemistry. Collection Göschen. De Gruyter, 2nd edition 1952.
  • with Friedrich Becker: Calorimetric methods for determining chemical heat of reaction. Vieweg 1956.

literature

  • Rudolf Suhrmann: Walter A. Roth. 1873-1950. In: Treatises of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft. Volume 2, 1950, pp. 141–148 ( online , PDF; 2 MB)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Published in Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie, Volume 24, 1897, p. 114.
  2. ^ Member entry by Walther Roth at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 206.
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Walther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roth, Walther Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1950
Place of death Braunschweig