Rudolf Fleischmann

Rudolf Fleischmann ( born May 1, 1903 in Erlangen, † February 3, 2002 ) was a German physicist.

Life and work

Rudolf Fleischmann was born in 1903 in Erlangen. He was the son of Erlanger biology professor and attended 1913-1922 the humanistic Gymnasium. At the age of 19 he began to study mathematics and physics in Munich and Erlangen, and laid in 1926 and 1927, the state examinations for teachers at secondary schools from. Instead of the teaching profession Fleischmann began after studying an academic career with a PhD thesis at the Institute of Professor Bernhard Gudden. His doctoral dissertation in the field of solid state physics dealt with the photoelectric effect in semiconductors.

After receiving his doctorate in 1929 in Erlangen, he took a two-year assistant position with Robert Wichard Pohl at the University of Göttingen. This was followed by two more years as an assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Heidelberg and later at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, where he habilitated in 1938. Fleischmann was a member of the SA since 1933. In 1937 he joined the NSDAP, the Nazi Teachers' Association and the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV ).

In 1941 he was appointed as associate professor at the State University of Strasbourg. There he built a nuclear physics research facility. The end of the war saw Fleischmann in captivity in the United States, where you feel as one of Germany's leading researchers in the field of nuclear physics very interested in him.

After his return to Germany Fleischmann was appointed in 1947 as professor of physics at the University of Hamburg. There he remained until 1953 and was director of the Physics, inter alia, State institute. In 1953 he followed a call to Erlangen, where he was offered the vacant Chair of Experimental Physics. This chair kept Fleischmann 16 years until he retired in 1969. In addition to his teaching, he was a member of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics.

Fleischmann was an internationally recognized researcher in the field of atomic and nuclear physics. He carried out investigations on the triggered by slow neutrons nuclear gamma radiation. Further works were among others the production of polarized protons ( deuterons ) and their application in nuclear reactions. In April 1957, he spoke with seventeen nuclear physicists in Germany against the equipment of the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons ( Göttingen Eighteen ).

On 3 February 2002 Rudolf Fleischmann died at the age of 98 years in Erlangen.

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