Wilhelm Westphal

Wilhelm Heinrich Westphal ( born March 3, 1882 in Hamburg, † June 5, 1978 in Berlin) was a German physicist. He was the author of high school textbooks and popular science magazines as well as a publisher of scholarly works.

Wilhelm Westphal was the son of a Hamburg merchant family. He studied physics in Bonn, Munich and Berlin. He then took a job as an assistant at the Physics Institute of the Friedrich -Wilhelms -Universität zu Berlin. In 1908 he received his doctorate with a thesis on experimental electron followed his habilitation in 1913.

From 1915 to 1918 he was with some other researchers (including Otto Hahn, James Franck and Gustav Hertz) used in the First World War in a register held by Fritz Haber poison gas detail.

After the First World War, he became a professor at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin. From 1922 on, he was for two years at the same time officer in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and in this function, the first German scientists, who officially visited the Soviet Union. Since 1928 he was a professor at the Technical University Berlin (later the Technical University of Berlin) until his retirement in 1955, the Technical University appointed him in 1964 to honor Senator. .

In 1928, Westphal taught at the Technische Hochschule a one practicals in physics, which became a model for other universities. His 1928 published textbook physics was long a standard work in Germany and reached 1970, the 26th edition. Widely used was also his practicals in physics. He was editor of five volumes of the Handbook of Physics, the Physics dictionary and the book series Science. Westphal was active with pamphlets, newspaper articles and lectures in the representation of physics for laymen, and even with his translated into several languages ​​book your everyday physics.

Writings

  • Physics. Springer 1928. 26th edition 1970.
  • Physics of everyday life. Frankfurt Societätsverlag 1940. Later as your daily physics. Berlin 1949 Ullsteinhaus 1978.
  • Physical placement. Vieweg 1938. 13th Edition 1983.
  • The theory of relativity. Reaching, Rudolstadt 1947. Franckh, Stuttgart 1955.
  • Small physics textbook without use of higher mathematics. Springer 1948. 5th edition 1963.
  • Your daily physics published by the printing house Tempelhof, Berlin 1949, 2nd edition 1950
  • The basics of physical conceptual system. Vieweg 1965. 2nd edition 1971.
  • Fun with physics. London 1964.
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