Hertz, Gustav Ludwig

Gustav Ludwig Herz was born on July 22, 1887 in Hamburg . He studied from 1909 to 1911 at the centers of modern physics - Göttingen , Munich and Berlin . He defended his thesis under the leadership of Heinrich Rubens in Berlin and became an assistant at the physics institute at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Together with the associate professor of the same university, physicist James Frank , Hertz developed in 1912-1913 experiments on the collision of electrons with atoms , which later turned out to be an essential confirmation of the Bohr theory of atom and quantum mechanics . The experiment is now known as the Frank-Hertz experiment . In 1925, Hertz and Frank received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this.

In April 1915, after agitation by Fritz Gaber , he participated in the gas war at Ypres .

In 1925, he headed the physics laboratories of the Philips light bulb factory in Eindhoven for 5 years. He was engaged in gas discharge physics there. Then he became a professor of physics in Halle and Berlin.

In 1935, he was deprived of the right to take exams because of his Jewish origin (his paternal grandfather was born into a Jewish family who converted to Lutheranism ), as a result of which he abandoned his professorship. Although he remained an honorary professor, Hertz preferred the work of a researcher in industry, in the research laboratories of Siemens & Halske , to such a semi-professional . In 1935, the Siemens-Forschungslaboratorium II laboratory was specially created for him in the company. At Siemens, Hertz was involved in diffusion separation plants for light isotopes , which later became the main technology for the enrichment of uranium for the production of an atomic bomb, as well as research in the field of electroacoustics . For this reason, he, together with Manfred von Ardenne , Max Steenbeck and other atomic specialists, was transported by a special department of the Red Army to Sukhumi in April 1945, where, as part of the USSR Nuclear Program , supervised by L.P. Beria , he headed the research laboratory, which consists of from German experts.

According to the results of the work of the institute in Sukhumi, according to Beria personally, Hertz was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree in 1951 together with Heinz Barvikh and Yu. A. Krutkov for studying the dynamics and stability of the gas diffusion separation of uranium isotopes, the results of which were used in an industrial installation in Novouralsk . The return of Hertz in the fall of 1954 was part of East Germany ’s preparation for the development of the nuclear industry. Hertz led the training and became in 1955 the head of the Scientific Council for the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy under the GDR Council of Ministers . In this council, all preparation for the concentration of the institutions scattered until then in one new Dresden Central Institute for Nuclear Research was carried out .

In 1954, Hertz was the director of a physics institute at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig , a member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and co - founder of the Research Council of the GDR . Foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences . He occupied a central place in the development of nuclear physics in the GDR through the publication of a three-volume textbook on nuclear physics. In 1975, he died in Berlin. He was buried in a family grave in a cemetery in Hamburg .

• 1925 - Nobel Prize in Physics
• 1951 - Stalin Prize
• 1955 - National Prize of the GDR of the 1st degree
• 1959 - Helmholtz Medal

is named after him.

• Frank - Hertz experiment
• Feddersen, Berend Wilhelm
• Trophy Brigades

• Hramov Yu. A. Hertz Gustav Ludwig (Hertz Gustav Ludwig) // Physicists: Biographical Reference / Ed. A.I. Akhiezer . - Ed. 2nd, rev. and add. - M .: Nauka , 1983 .-- S. 82 .-- 400 p. - 200,000 copies. (per.)

• Profile of Gustav Ludwig Hertz (Herz) on the official website of the RAS
• Information from the Nobel Committee website
• Short biography (German)