Stefan Meyer (physicist)

Stefan Meyer ( * April 27, 1872 in Vienna, † December 29, 1949 in Bad Ischl ) was an Austrian physicist and pioneer of the study of radioactivity. He taught at the University of Vienna as a professor of physics, was instrumental in establishing and managing the Vienna Institute of Radium Research as well as in the international radium standard Commission.

Life

Meyer, brother of the chemist Hans Leopold Meyer (1871-1942), graduated from high school horn and studied from 1892 in Vienna mathematics, physics and chemistry. In 1896 he received a doctorate in phil. and then continued his studies in Leipzig and at the Technical University of Vienna. In 1897 he became an assistant to Ludwig Boltzmann.

Through a contact to the Brunswick chemist Friedrich Giesel he came into the possession of small samples of radium ( pitchblende residues). With the help of measurements and results on these samples appeared in 1899, the first work of the Vienna Institute of Physics for the investigation of radioactive, with whom he habilitated in 1900 as a lecturer in physics at the University of Vienna. Stefan Meyer, an avid musician, in the years 1902 to 1911 was professor of acoustics at the Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music.

After the death of Ludwig Boltzmann's he took over in 1906 for a short time the leadership of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 1907 he became an assistant to Franz Serafin Exner - and was awarded the 1908 title of associate professor at the University of Vienna. 1908-10 he was heavily involved with Exner in planning the basis of a foundation by the Court Advocate Karl Kupelwieser newly established Institute for Radium Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the " Institute for Subatomic Physics", he took over in 1910. In 1915 he became a full professor in 1920 and chair of the Institute for Radium Research. In 1910 he was in Brussels by the Constituent Assembly of the International Radium Standard Commission ( President Ernest Rutherford ) appointed Secretary, which had the goal of creating internationally comparable " Radium Standards" for radioactive preparations. 1912 succeeded his assistant and student Victor Hess, the discovery of cosmic rays, which was in 1936 awarded the Nobel Prize. 1913 led George de Hevesy (Nobel Prize 1943) and Friedrich Adolf Paneth at the Institute for Radium Research first experiments on the radioactive tracer method by. In 1921 he became a corresponding member, in 1932 a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. In 1937 he was appointed President of the International Radium Standard Commission.

1938 Stefan Meyer was forced to retire because of his Jewish ancestry. From the Academy of Sciences he stepped out on 24 November 1938 to spare her difficulties and forestall an exclusion. Due to its good relations he was the Nazi period in Bad Ischl survive unmolested. 1946-47 he served as an honorary professor at the University of Vienna and as Chairman of the Institute for Radium Research, before he retired in 1947. On December 29, 1949, he died in Bad Ischl.

Importance

Stefan Meyer was one of the most important Viennese physicist of his time. He is one of the pioneers of the study of the radioactivity; the Vienna Institute headed by him was, together with the traffic routed by the couple Marie and Pierre Curie and Ernest Rutherford institutes in Paris and Cambridge at the then world's most prestigious research centers on radioactivity. To the rescue came the access to radium sources from the Bohemian mines in Jáchymov with which the institutions were supplied in Paris and Cambridge here. Meyer has significant achievements was the realization that there is a particle in the radium radiation. He could prove that polonium is not a stable element, and get him first steps for age determination using radioactive elements. The age of the sun certain Stefan Meyer in 1937 to about 4 ½ billion years.

The Nobel Prize in Physics ceremonies the years 1901 to 1929 Meyer was never proposed, but his own suggestions have been very successful: He suggested 12 physicists, 10 of which actually Nobel prizes have been (4 already in the year in which Meyer proposing ). This could be an additional indication Meyers good international network lie.

Writings (selection )

  • Handbook of radioactivity. 1916 ( with E. Schweidler ).
  • At the genesis of the chemical elements. In 1947.
  • The history, the foundation and the first decade of the Institute for Radium Research. , 1950.
  • The history of the discovery of the nature of the Becquerel rays. In: The natural sciences. Vol 36, 1949.

Swell

  • Wolfgang Reiter: Stefan Meyer: Pioneer in Radioactivity. In: Physics in Perspective. Vol 3 ( 1), 106-127
  • Stefan Sienell, Christine Ottner: The Archive of the Institute for Radium Research. In: Indicators of math. - nat. Class of the Academy. II 140, 2004, pp. 11-53, especially pp. 23-33
  • Berta Karlik, Erich Schmid: Franz Serafin Exner and his circle. A contribution to the history of physics in Austria. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1982.
Friedrich Oskar Giesel Franz S. Exner Friedrich Paneth Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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