Otto Lummer

Otto Richard Lummer ( born July 17, 1860 in Gera, † July 5, 1925 in Breslau) was a German physicist.

Otto Lummer studied at various German universities before an assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz in Berlin in 1884. There he worked at the Physical Technical Institute, where he also became a professor in 1894. From 1904 he was professor at Breslau.

Otto Lummer first discovered the interference phenomena in plane-parallel glass plates. Together with Brodhun Eugen (1860-1938), he invented the photometer cube.

He also presented together with Ernst Pringsheim (1859-1917) to fundamental studies on the distribution of energy in the spectrum of a black body, which led to the formation of his quantum hypothesis Max Planck.

Along with Wilhelm Wien, he established the first black body radiator consisting of a blackened hollow sphere with a small orifice.

Lummer also developed a mercury vapor lamp to produce monochromatic light and 1902 he built a high-resolution spectroscope.

Honors

One day before Lummers 150th anniversary in 2010 revealed the Gera Mayor Norbert gentility a plaque at the former location of Lummers birth and residence. Since 2008, a train of Gera tram Lummers bears names.

Writings

• Rationale, objectives and limits of lighting technology ( eye and light generation ), Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, Berlin, 1918