Philipp Frank

Philipp Frank ( born March 20, 1884 in Vienna, † July 21, 1966 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States) was an Austrian philosopher, physicist and mathematician.

Life

Frank studied physics at the Ludwig Boltzmann at the University of Vienna and received his PhD in theoretical physics in 1907. Already since his student days he was interested in philosophical questions and he came in contact with the Vienna Circle. Frank was a friend of Richard von Mises. The collaboration came out, among other things, the book differential equations and integral equations of mechanics and physics (1925 ).

Frank wrote a work on causality, was impressed by the Albert Einstein, and there was a lively exchange between the two. Frank habilitated in 1910 at the University of Vienna, where he became a lecturer. On Einstein's recommendation Frank became his successor at the German University in Prague, where he remained until 1938, in 1912. Due to the invasion of the Wehrmacht and the destruction of the Vienna Circle Frank emigrated to the United States. At first he was a guest lecturer and then lecturer in physics and mathematics at Harvard University. His friend von Mises followed him there. Frank wrote a biography of Einstein, with whom he was friends with the title: his life and times.

Frank worked in various fields of mathematics and physics: calculus of variations, Fourier series, function spaces, geometric optics, Schrödinger'sche wave mechanics and relativity theory. His publications cover a wide range. For example, he tried in 1910, together with Hermann Rothe, derive the Lorentz transformation in the context of group theory and without recourse to the postulate of the constancy of the speed of light.

Writings

  • H. Rothe: About the transformation of the space-time coordinates of resting on moving systems. In: Annals of Physics. 34, 1910, pp. 825-855 (online).
  • The differential and integral equations of mechanics and physics., 1930.
  • The law of causality and its limits. Vienna 1932. Reprint 1988.
  • Truth - relative or absolute? Zurich 1952.
  • The validation of scientific theories. In 1961.
  • Einstein: His Life and Time. Vieweg, Wiesbaden 1979, ISBN 3-528-08437-5.
  • Other: The Law of Causality and Its Limits. Vienna Circle Collection. In 1997.
  • Foundations of Physics ( = Foundations of the Unity of Science Vol. 1, no. 7).
  • The validation of scientific theories.
  • Relativity and its astronomical implications: The Significance of general relativity presented in the language of the layman.
  • Thermodynamics.
  • Interpretations and misinterpretations of modern physics.
  • Relativity: A richer truth. Seeds -of -thought series
  • Philosophy of science.
Cambridge (Massachusetts) Geometrical optics Lorentz-Transformation Axiom Integrated Authority File
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