Austrian-American physicist and Nobel laureate (1883?1964)
Victor Franz Hess
(
German:
[?v?ktoː??
f?ants
?h?s]
; 24 June 1883 – 17 December 1964) was an
Austrian
-
American
physicist
, and
Nobel laureate in physics
, who discovered
cosmic rays
.
[1]
Biography
[
edit
]
He was born to Vinzenz Hess and Serafine Edle von Grossbauer-Waldstatt, in
Waldstein Castle
, near Peggau in
Styria
,
Austria
, on 24 June 1883. His father was a royal forester in Prince
Louis of Oettingen-Wallerstein
's service. He attended secondary school at
Graz
Gymnasium from 1893 to 1901.
[2]
[3]
From 1901 to 1905, Hess was an undergraduate student at the
University of Graz
. In 1910, Hess received his PhD from the
University of Vienna
.
[4]
He worked as Assistant under
Stefan Meyer
at the
Institute for Radium Research
, Viennese Academy of Sciences, from 1910 to 1920.
In 1920, he married Marie Bertha Warner Breisky.
[1]
Hess took a leave of absence in 1921 and travelled to the United States, working at the
United States Radium Corporation
, in
New Jersey
, and as consulting physicist for the
US Bureau of Mines
, in
Washington, D.C.
In 1923, he returned to the University of Graz, and was appointed the ordinary professor of experimental physics in 1925. The
University of Innsbruck
appointed him professor, and director of the Institute of Radiology, in 1931.
[2]
Hess relocated to the United States with his
Jewish
wife in 1938, in order to escape
Nazi
persecution. The same year
Fordham University
appointed him professor of physics, and he later became a naturalized United States citizen in 1944.
[5]
[6]
His wife died of cancer in 1955.
[1]
The same year he married Elizabeth M. Hoenke, the woman who nursed Berta at the end of her life.
[5]
He was a practicing
Roman Catholic
,
[7]
and in 1946, he wrote on the topic of the relationship between
science and religion
in his article "My Faith", in which he explained why he believed in God.
[8]
[9]
He retired from Fordham University in 1958 and he died on 17 December 1964, in
Mount Vernon, New York
from
Parkinson's disease
.
[1]
Cosmic rays
[
edit
]
Between 1911 and 1913, Hess undertook the work that won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936. For many years, scientists had been puzzled by the levels of ionizing radiation measured in the atmosphere. The assumption at the time was that the radiation would decrease as the distance from the earth, the then assumed source of the radiation, increased. The
electroscopes
previously used gave an approximate measurement of the radiation but indicated that at greater altitude in the atmosphere the level of radiation might actually be higher than that on the ground. Hess approached this mystery first by greatly increasing the precision of the measuring equipment, and then by personally taking the equipment aloft in a balloon. He systematically measured the radiation at altitudes up to 5.3 kilometres (3.3 mi) during 1911?1912. The daring flights were made both by day and during the night, at significant risk to himself.
[3]
The result of Hess's meticulous work was published in the Proceedings of the Viennese Academy of Sciences, and showed the level of radiation decreased up to an altitude of about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi), but above that the level increased considerably, with the radiation detected at 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), being about twice that at sea level.
[10]
His conclusion was that there was radiation penetrating the atmosphere from outer space, and his discovery was confirmed by
Robert Andrews Millikan
in 1925, who gave the radiation the name "
cosmic rays
". Hess's discovery opened the door to many new discoveries in
particle
and
nuclear physics
.
[3]
In particular, both the
positron
and the
muon
were first discovered in cosmic rays by
Carl David Anderson
. Hess and Anderson shared the 1936
Nobel Prize in Physics
.
Honours and awards
[
edit
]
Publications
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Victor F. Hess, Physicist, Dies. Shared the Nobel Prize in 1936. Was Early Experimenter on Conductivity of Air. Taught at Fordham Till 1958"
.
New York Times
. December 19, 1964
. Retrieved
2012-09-30
.
... under his supervision, the United States Radium Corporation in New Jersey. ... Dr. Hess married Marie Bertha Warner Breisky in 1920; she died in 1955. ...
- ^
a
b
"Victor Franz Hess"
.
Nobel Foundation
. 1936
. Retrieved
2007-10-04
.
- ^
a
b
c
Angelo, Joseph A (2004).
Nuclear Technology
.
Greenwood Press
. pp.
121
?124.
ISBN
1-57356-336-6
.
Victor Franz Hess was born on the 24th of June, 1883, in Waldstein Castle, near Peggau in Steiermark, Austria. His father, Vinzens Hess, was a forester in Prince Ottingen-Wallerstein's service and his mother was Serafine Edle von Grossbauer-Waldstatt. ...
- ^
"Victor Francis Hess | Austrian physicist | Britannica"
.
www.britannica.com
. Retrieved
2023-02-14
.
- ^
a
b
Bill Breisky (August 7, 2012).
"Essay: On Its Centenary, Celebrating a Ride That Advanced Physics"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
August 7,
2012
.
- ^
"Profile detail: Victor Franz Hess"
.
Marquis Who's Who
. Retrieved
August 7,
2012
.
- ^
"Hess, Victor ? Deutsche Biographie"
.
- ^
Victor Franz Hess. "
My Faith
".
San Antonio Light
Newspaper Archive. November 3, 1946, p. 52
- ^
"A Physicist's Faith"
.
- ^
V. F. Hess (1912). "Uber Beobachtungen der durchdringenden Strahlung bei sieben Freiballonfahrten (English translation)".
Physikalische Zeitschrift
.
13
: 1084?1091.
arXiv
:
1808.02927
.
- ^
"Reply to a parliamentary question"
(PDF)
(in German). p. 73
. Retrieved
10 December
2012
.
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