Wilhelm Kast

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Wilhelm Kast (born February 8, 1896 in Halle an der Saale ; † January 9, 1980 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German physical chemist who researched liquid crystals .

Life

Kast came from an old family of miners from the Harz region, grew up in Halle, studied physics at the University of Halle from 1919 and received his doctorate there in 1922 with Julius Herweg with a dissertation on the dielectric constant of liquid crystals. As a post-doctoral student , he was with Gustav Mie at the University of Freiburg and completed his habilitation there in 1924 (Habilitation thesis: Investigations on the behavior of the anisotropic melt of para-azoxyanisole in a magnetic field ). Then he was a private lecturer there. In 1932/33 he was with Leonard Ornstein in Utrecht as a Rockefeller scholarship holder, but had contacts with Ornstein through his scientific work. In 1937 he became associate professor for physics at the University of Halle and institute director as successor to Gerhard Hoffmann . On May 1, 1937, he was accepted into the NSDAP . In 1945, like Rudolf Abderhalden and other scientists , he was forcibly deported by the Americans to the western occupation zones (Hesse) (so-called Abderhaltentransport ) and released from the University of Halle in his absence. From 1947 he worked for Bayer AG in Dormagen, where he set up a laboratory for structural analysis of synthetic fibers with X-rays and electron beams. In 1954 he became an honorary professor in Cologne with a teaching position for the physics of macromolecular substances. In 1955 he moved to Freiburg for health reasons, where he also became an honorary professor with a teaching position ( Hermann Staudinger's school of macromolecular chemistry was there ) and from 1959 was Professor Emeritus (status of a full professor emeritus). He taught and researched afterwards (he continued teaching until 1967).

plant

Kast studied liquid crystals in the 1920s according to their electro-magnetic and optical properties, flow properties, calorimetry and with X-ray structure analysis. His experiments led Ornstein to his sponge theory of liquid crystals and later formed the basis for widespread use in liquid crystal displays (LCD) and others. His research also contributed to elucidating the interactions of molecules in liquids in general, particularly in macromolecular chemistry . Before the Second World War he wanted to pursue a program to investigate the molecular theory of liquids, but then had to do applied research to determine the structure of synthetic fibers, which he continued after the war. At Bayer, after the Second World War, he experimentally demonstrated the relationship between the orientation of the molecules and the structure of the textiles and clarified the processes involved in spinning solutions with viscometric studies. In Freiburg he wrote an overview of the liquid crystals and their physical-chemical properties for the Landolt-Börnstein (6th edition).

Honors and memberships

From 1939 he was a member of the Leopoldina . In 1972 he was honorary president of an international conference on liquid crystals in Berlin.

Fonts

  • Fine structure investigations on artificial cellulose fibers of different manufacturing processes, research reports of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, research reports of the Ministry of Economics and Transport of North Rhine-Westphalia, No. 35, 1953 (Part 1: The state of orientation), No. 261, 1956 ( Part 2: The state of crystallization)
  • Spinning experiments to determine the structure of artificial cellulose fibers, research reports from the Ministry of Economics and Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia, No. 93, Cologne, Westdeutscher Verlag 1954
  • with Willy Brenschede, E. Jenckel: Die Physik der Hochpolmeren, Volume 3: Order states and transformation phenomena in solid high-polymer materials, Springer 1955
  • with Rolf Hosemann, Günter Schoknecht: Light-optical production and discussion of the folding squares of paracrystalline grids, research reports of the Ministry of Economics and Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia, No. 173, Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag 1956
  • with Victor Elsaesser: Flow processes in the spinneret and the blue cone of the Cuoxam process, Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag 1960
  • Fine structure of non-metallic organic substances, in: Ernst Schmidt (Ed.), Landolt-Börnstein, Volume 4, Part 3, Springer 1957
  • Transformation temperatures of crystalline liquids, in: Klaus Schäfer, Ellen Lax (Ed.), Properties of matter in its aggregate states: Part 2 - Equilibria of steam, condensate and osmotic phenomena, Landolt-Börnstein, Volume 2, Part 2a, 6th edition, Springer 1960

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information in the obituary by Alfred Faessler in the Physikalische Blätter 1980
personal data
SURNAME Kast, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physical chemist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle on the Saale
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1980
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau