Person: Hertz (2), Gustav
Gustav Hertz was a German physicist and Nobel Prize winner for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gases.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- As was the custom with German students at this time, Hertz did not complete his studies at a single university, but moved around to sample the best of a number of institutions.
- After Göttingen, Hertz moved to Munich where he studied at the university before moving to the University of Berlin in 1909 to study for his doctorate.
- In 1913 Hertz was appointed as an Assistant in Physics at the University of Berlin.
- Franck was five years older than Hertz and had been awarded his doctorate by the University of Berlin in 1909.
- Both Hertz and Franck were mobilised when war broke out and their research collaboration necessarily stopped.
- The war proved unfortunate for Hertz who was severely wounded in action in 1915.
- They had two sons, Carl Hellmuth Hertz, born on 15 October 1920, and Johannes Hertz who both became physicists.
- Hertz left Berlin in 1920 and worked for five years in the physics laboratory of the Philips Incandescent Lamp Factory at Eindhoven.
- After being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925, Hertz gave his Nobel lecture on The results of the electron-impact tests in the light of Bohr's theory of atoms on 11 December 1926.
- Hertz qualified under the exemptions, but this was not honoured over the following period.
- Hertz resigned his positions at the Technological University of Berlin in 1935 and returned to industry being appointed Director of the Siemens physics laboratory.
- When the war ended in 1945 Hertz went to the Soviet Union where he worked as the head of a research laboratory.
- Hertz received many honours in addition to the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Born 22 July 1887, Hamburg, Germany. Died 30 October 1975, Berlin, East Germany.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Germany, Prize Nobel
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
