Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Heinrich Kuhn, Robert Oppenheimer and James Franck, in Gottingen, June 23rd 1927

Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn
Born(1904-03-10)10 March 1904
Breslau, German Empire
(now Wrocław, Poland)
Died26 August 1994(1994-08-26) (aged 90)
Oxford, United Kingdom
NationalityGerman, British
Alma materUniversity of Greifswald
University of Göttingen
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist
InstitutionsClarendon Laboratory
Balliol College, Oxford
Thesis Absorptionspektrum und Dissoziationswarmen von Halogenmolekül  (1926)
Doctoral advisorJames Franck

Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn

atomic spectra
in German in 1934 and English in 1962.

Biography

Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn was born in

rechtsanwalt (lawyer) and notary public, and his wife Marthe née Hoppe. His older brother Helmut Kuhn [de] became a philosophy professor. His paternal grandmother was Charlotte Kuhn née Henschel, the half-sister of George Henschel, a musician who emigrated to Britain.[1]

Much of Kuhn's early life was spent in

absorption spectra of chlorine (Cl2) and bromine (Br2). His results confirmed the Franck–Condon principle and formed his 1926 doctoral thesis on Absorptionspektrum und Dissoziationswarmen von Halogenmolekül (Absorption spectra and dissociation warming of halogen molecules).[1]

Kuhn became a demonstrator at Göttingen in 1926, and then a lecturer in 1931. He continued his studies of the Franck–Condon principle and the Stark effect for his habilitation in February 1931, which allowed him to become a privatdozent. He married Marie Bertha Nohl, the daughter of the Göttingen philosophy professor Herman Nohl [de] and cousin of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Wittgenstein. Although his father was Jewish, he had been baptised when he married, and Kuhn was brought up as a Christian. This meant little when the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. Kuhn was classified as non-Aryan because he had two Jewish grandparents. He was dismissed from his university positions, and his habilitation was revoked. As a decorated veteran of the First World War, Franck was not dismissed from his post, but elected to resign in protest rather than dismiss colleagues for their race or political beliefs.[1][2]

Before leaving Germany, Franck attempted to find positions for his former students and colleagues. He introduced Kuhn to Professor

naturalised British subject in 1939. At the Clarendon laboratory, Jackson and Kuhn studied the hyperfine structure and Zeeman effects of the light elements such a lithium, sodium and potassium.[1]

In 1940, Kuhn joined a team led by

Liberator, in December 1943 and January 1944 to work with the Manhattan Project.[1][3]

Jackson left Britain for tax purposes after the war, but Kuhn remained at Oxford, where he continued his research into atomic spectra with G.W. Series and G.K. Woodgate. Kuhn had become a lecturer at

Holweck Prize in 1967.[4] Germany restored his habilitation, and he was given the status and pension of a full professor, but he declined offers to return to Germany.[1][2]

Kuhn had published a textbook on atomic spectra in German, Atomspektren, in 1934.[1] In 1962, he published an updated version, Atomic Spectra, in English; it was still widely used two decades later. He died in Oxford on 26 August 1994 after a long illness.[2]

Notes

  1. ^
    doi:10.1098/rsbm.1996.0014
    .
  2. ^ a b c d Sanders, Patrick (3 September 1994). "Obituary: Heinrich Kuhn". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022.
  3. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55081. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^ Institute of Physics. "Holweck medal recipients". Retrieved 5 January 2015.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heinrich_Gerhard_Kuhn&oldid=1170996078"