Otto Stern

Otto Stern was also the pen name of German women's rights activist Louise Otto-Peters (1819–1895).

Otto Stern
Born	(1888-02-17)17 February 1888 Sohrau, Kingdom of Prussia (today Żory, Poland)
Died	17 August 1969(1969-08-17) (aged 81) Berkeley, California, United States
Nationality	Germany
Alma mater	University of Breslau University of Frankfurt
Known for	Stern–Gerlach experiment Spin quantization Molecular ray method Stern–Volmer relationship
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1943)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of Rostock University of Hamburg Carnegie Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley

Otto Stern (17 February 1888 – 17 August 1969) was a German American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. He was the second most nominated person for a Nobel Prize with 82 nominations in the years 1925–1945 (most times nominated is Arnold Sommerfeld with 84 nominations), ultimately winning in 1943.

Biography

Plaque on the wall of what are now the physics institutes of Hamburg University, commemorating Stern's tenure

Stern was born into a Jewish family (father Oskar Stern and mother Eugenia née Rosenthal) in Sohrau (now Żory) in Upper Silesia, the German Empire's Kingdom of Prussia (now in Poland). He studied at Breslau, now Wrocław in Lower Silesia.

Stern completed his studies at the University of Breslau in 1912 with a doctor's degree in physical chemistry. He then followed Albert Einstein to Charles University in Prague and in later to ETH Zurich. Stern received his Habilitation at the University of Frankfurt in 1915 and in 1921, he became a professor at the University of Rostock, which he left in 1923 to work at the newly founded Institut für Physikalische Chemie at the University of Hamburg.

After resigning from his post at the University of Hamburg in 1933 because of the Nazis' Machtergreifung (seizure of power), he became professor of physics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

As an experimental physicist Stern contributed to the discovery of spin quantization in the Stern–Gerlach experiment with Walther Gerlach in February 1922 at the Physikalischer Verein in Frankfurt am Main; demonstration of the wave nature of atoms and molecules; measurement of atomic magnetic moments; discovery of the proton's magnetic moment; and development of the molecular ray method which is utilized for the technique of molecular beam epitaxy.

He was awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physics, the first to be awarded since 1939. He was the sole recipient in Physics that year, and the award citation omitted mention of the Stern–Gerlach experiment, as Gerlach had remained active in Nazi-led Germany.

Stern died of a heart attack in Berkeley, California on 17 August 1969.

See also

• List of German inventors and discoverers

Sources

• Horst Schmidt-Böcking and Karin Reich: Otto Stern. Physiker Querdenker, Nobelpreisträger. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-942921-23-7.
• J.P. Toennies, H. Schmidt-Böcking, B. Friedrich3, and J.C.A. Lower (2011). Otto Stern (1888–1969): The founding father of experimental atomic physics. Annalen der Physik, 523, 1045–1070. arXiv:1109.4864

External links

• Otto Stern's biography at nobelprize.org
• Stern's publication on his molecular beam method
• Otto Stern School Frankfurt am Main, Germany