Gustav Kirchhoff

Sir William Crookes and the Fundamentals of Luminescence

17. June 2022 Harald Sack

On June 17, 1832, British physicist, chemist, science journalist, and parapsychologist Sir William Crookes was born. Crookes visualized cathode rays, discovered the fundamentals of luminescence and isotopes, and developed methods for detecting ionizing radiation. He discovered the chemical element thallium and the thorium isotope 234Th. William Crookes – Biographical Background William Crookes was born in London, the eldest son of the second wife of Joseph Crookes, a very wealthy tailor. He attended…

mathematics

Sir George Stokes and Fluid Dynamics

1. February 2022 Harald Sack

On February 1, 1903, Irish mathematician, physicist, politician and theologian Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, passed away. Stokes made seminal contributions to fluid dynamics, optics, and mathematical physics including the first version of what is now known as Stokes’ theorem. “It is very difficult for us, placed as we have been from earliest childhood in a condition of training, to say what would have been our feelings had such training never…

photography

Gabriel Lippmann and the Invention of Colour Photography

16. August 2021 Tabea Tietz

On August 16, 1845, Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and Nobel Laureate Gabriel Lippmann was born. He is best known for for his method of reproducing colors photographically based on the phenomenon of interference. Gabriel Lippmann, Early Years Gabriel Lippmann was the son of a Luxembourg Jewish family. His father, Isaïe managed the family glove-making business at the former convent in Bonnevoie. In 1848, the family moved to Paris where Lippmann was initially tutored by his mother, Miriam Rose (Lévy), before attending…

chemistry

Dimitri Mendeleev and the Periodic Table of Elements

2. February 2020 Tabea Tietz

On February 2, 1907, Russian chemist and inventor Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev passed away. He is probably best known for his version of the periodic table of chemical elements. Furthermore, he used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered. “I wish to establish some sort of system not guided by chance but by some sort of definite…

physics

Gustav Kirchhoff and the Fundamentals of Electrical Circuits

12. March 2019 Tabea Tietz

On March 12, 1824, German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff was born. He is best known for his contribution to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects. Education and Academic Career Gustav Robert Kirchhoff was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to his father Friedrich Kirchhoff, a law councillor in Königsberg with a strong sense of duty to the Prussian state, and his mother Johanna…

physics

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and the Bunsen Burner

30. March 2018 Harald Sack

On March 30, 1811, German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen was born. Bunsen investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff.[6] He developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. With his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, he developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use.…

astronomy

Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Solar Spectrum

6. March 2018 Harald Sack

On March 6, 1787, German optician and physicist Joseph Fraunhofer – later enobled Ritter von Fraunhofer – was born. He is known for the discovery of the dark absorption lines known as Fraunhofer lines in the Sun‘s spectrum, and for making excellent optical glass and achromatic telescope objectives. Moreover, he is the name giver for the German Fraunhofer Society for the advancement of applied research. “In all my experiments I could, owing to…