About Stern biography

Otto Stern is the famous German physicist, Nobel laureate “For contribution to the development of the molecular beams method and the opening and measuring of the magnetic moment of the proton”. Otto Stern was born on February 17, Otto Stern grew up in a rich family, where parents paid a lot of attention to the education and raising of children. The boy learns easily, eagerly assimilating knowledge, parents in every possible way encourage him to read.

At the end of school, Stern studied natural sciences under the leadership of teachers from Freiburg, Munich and other universities. In Stern, he defended his doctoral dissertation on physical chemistry University of Breslau. Back in his student years, Otto Stern established contacts with leading physicists and chemists of that time. The lectures of Arnold Zommerfeld aggravated his interest in theoretical physics, and the lectures of Otto Lummer and Ernst Pringsheim - to experimental physics.

The work of outstanding German scientists Ludwig Bolzman, Rudolf Clausius and Walter Nernst in molecular theory, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics made such a strong impression on the student that Stern chose the field of physical chemistry for his research. In the year, Otto Stern enlisted Albert Einstein's consent to become his head of graduate school at the University of Prague.

From Einstein, Stern learns a lot about the latest events in physics, and together they write an article. When Einstein moves to Zurich next year, graduate student Stern follows him. Working with Einstein, Otto Stern becomes a Privat-Docent of the Federal School in Zurich. Enjoying duties allow him to continue theoretical research. He applies quantum theory and statistical mechanics to the problems of thermodynamics and publishes an article.

Later during the First World War, Stern and a number of other scientists were transferred to the Nernst Laboratory at the University of Berlin, where various studies were carried out on behalf of the military ministry. Under the influence of conversations with skillful experimenters Frank and Volmer, the interests of a young scientist. After the First World War, Max Bourne became the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of Frankfurt University and invited Stern to the post of his assistant.

Stern published a theoretical work on the superficial energy of solid bodies, but he soon captures the problem of experimental confirmation of the theory of molecular movement. The experimental installation designed by Sterne consisted of a small furnace, evaporating silver atoms from a metal sample, through which atoms moving in the direction of the cut fell into a vacuum chamber, and another gap located further from the output of the furnace in the alignment.

Having placed two cracks in the alignment, striking from each other at a certain distance, Stern thereby created the conditions under which the atoms that passed through both cracks had the same direction of speed, and the durable of gas in the vacuum chamber reduced the probability of clashes, and thereby deviation of the atoms and scattering of the bundle.

When rotating the wheels of the atom, who managed to slip between the teeth of the first wheel, could go between the teeth of the second wheel only if the gap between these teeth was on the line of their flight. Knowing the width of the gap, the speed of rotation and the distance between the wheels, Stern could calculate the speed of the atoms passing between them.

Measurements completed in a year confirmed theoretical predictions. The Stern method turned out to be a powerful means of observing invisible particles using relatively gross laboratory devices, but required the most skillful skill from the experimenter. He turned to Walter Gerlah with a request to help explore the magnetic moments of atoms using the same method.

The experience of Stern - Gerlah, executed in a year, confirmed the justice of quantum theory. In the year, Otto Stern was appointed a professor at the University of Rostock, and in the year he became a professor at the University of Hamburg. In Hamburg, having at his disposal a laboratory specially built for research by molecular beams, Stern used this method to check the prediction made by Louis de Broil in the year.

Both quantum theory and the experiment showed that electromagnetic radiation, such as light, has both corpuscular quanta and wave properties, indicating the corresponding wavelengths. Soon after Hitler became the chancellor of Germany in the year, Estherman and other Jewish scientists fired from the Frankfurt University on the basis of Nazi anti-Semitic laws on civil rights.

Although Stern was a Jew, he was defended by racist laws for some time service in the German army during the First World War. However, in protest, he resigned and, together with Estherman, accepted the invitation of the Faculty of Physics of the Carnegie Technological Institute. In the United States, holding the position of professor-research, he helped create a laboratory of molecular beams.The Nobel Prize was not awarded, but the next year Otto Stern was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contribution to the development of the method of molecular beams and the opening and measuring of the magnetic moment of the proton." Due to the conditions of wartime, the usual award ceremony was not held, and the award was transferred to Stern during breakfast organized by the US-Scandinavian Fund at the Wal-Dordoria Hotel in New York.

The Nobel lecture "Milecular beams", Stern read only in the year. After leaving the Carnegie Technological Institute, Stern moved to Berkeley California, where his two sisters settled. Continuing to maintain contacts with the physical community and monitor the development of events in the physics of elementary particles, it lived in relative isolation. Regularly applying visits to Europe, Stern refused to go to Germany land and receive a pension from the German government.

In the last years of his life, Stern, who had never married, gained a taste for a refined table and cigars. He willingly went to the cinema.

Death from a heart attack overtakes him in one of the cinemas of Berkeley. According to Emilio Segre, “Stern was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. He wrote relatively few articles, but what power those that he wrote have!