From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Geiger (l.) with
Ernest Rutherford
c. 1905
Johannes Wilhelm "Hans" Geiger
(30 September 1882 ? 24 September 1945) was a German
physicist
. He is perhaps best known as the co-inventor of the detector component of the
Geiger counter
and for the
Geiger?Marsden experiment
which discovered the
atomic nucleus
. Geiger was born at
Neustadt an der Haardt
, Germany. He was one of five children born to the
Indologist
Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger
, who was professor at the
University of Erlangen
.
In 1902, Geiger started studying
physics
and
mathematics
at the University of Erlangen and was awarded a doctorate in 1906.
[1]
In 1907 he began work with
Ernest Rutherford
at the
University of Manchester
and in 1909, along with
Ernest Marsden
, conducted the famous
Geiger?Marsden experiment
called the "gold foil experiment". Rutherford and Geiger created the Rutherford-Geiger tube, later to become the Geiger tube.
In 1911 Geiger and
John Mitchell Nuttall
discovered the
Geiger?Nuttall law
(or rule) and performed experiments that led to
Rutherford's atomic model
. In 1928 Geiger and his student
Walther Muller
created an improved version of the Geiger tube, the
Geiger?Muller tube
. Geiger also worked with
James Chadwick
. In 1912 he became leader of the Physical-Technical Reichsanstalt in Berlin, 1925 professor in
Kiel
, 1929 in
Tubingen
, and from 1936 in Berlin.
He was a member of the
Uranium Club
. Geiger never expressed himself in public about the Nazis. There are reports both about him helping, and rejecting,
Jewish
colleagues. Geiger died in
Potsdam
, Germany a few months after World War II ended in Europe. He had four siblings: three sisters and one brother that were all younger than him. His brother,
Rudolf Geiger
, was very interested in meteorology and climatology.