Arthur R. von Hippel

Arthur Robert von Hippel ( born November 19, 1898 in Rostock, † December 31, 2003 in Newton, near Boston, Massachusetts ) was a German -American materials scientist and physicist.

Life

Hippel studied physics at the University of Göttingen. He developed in his dissertation a (patented ) Thermo microphone and in 1924 received his doctorate. He was assistant 1924-1927 and 1928-1929 lecturer at Max Vienna at the University of Jena. There he constructed a mercury vapor lamp, known as von Hippel- lamp, which was produced by the company SCHOTT Jena until 1991. After his wife Marianne, née Knight, in Jena, a flu epidemic had died, he married in 1930 Dagmar, daughter of James Franck. He remained as a lecturer at the Physics Institute of the University of Göttingen until 1933.

In 1933 he emigrated from Germany. From 1934 he worked at the University of Istanbul, then a year with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In 1936 he received the invitation of Karl Taylor Compton a position as assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In 1940 he founded the Laboratory for Insulation Research. This laboratory has been involved with the Radiation Laboratory at the radar research during the Second World War. For this he was awarded in 1948 by Harry Truman with the President's Certificate of Merit.

Hippel discovered the ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of barium titanate ( BaTiO3 ).

The Materials Research Society forgives him every year in honor of the Von Hippel Award for Materials Science.

His son Eric von Hippel is an economist at MIT, Peter von Hippel is a molecular biologist at the University of Oregon, and Frank von Hippel, Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (1993-1994 Security Advisor under President Clinton). The ophthalmologist Eugen von Hippel is an uncle of Arthur von Hippel.

Works

• Molecular Science and Molecular Engineering ( 1959)
• Dielectrics and Waves (1954 )
• Dielectric Materials and Applications ( 1954)
• Life in Times of Turbulent Transitions - the Autobiography of Arthur Robert von Hippel (1988 )