J. Hans D. Jensen

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J. Hans D. Jensen
Jensen in 1963
Born
Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen

(1907-06-25)25 June 1907
Died11 February 1973(1973-02-11) (aged 65)
NationalityGerman
Alma materUniversity of Hamburg
AwardsNobel Prize in Physics (1963)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Doctoral advisorWilhelm Lenz
Doctoral studentsHans-Arwed Weidenmüller

Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen (German pronunciation:

Jensen shared half of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics with

Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the nuclear shell model
.

Education

Jensen studied physics, mathematics, physical chemistry and philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and University of Hamburg from 1926 to 1931, and received his doctorate at the latter in 1932 under Wilhelm Lenz. He completed his habilitation in 1936 at the University of Hamburg.[1][2]

Career

In 1937 Jensen was

German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein (Uranium Club), began on 1 September 1939, the day that Nazi Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland. Harteck, one of the principals in the Uranverein, brought Jensen into the project. Jensen's main thrust was on double centrifuges for separation of uranium isotopes (see the section below citing internal reports of the Uranverein). Harteck and Jensen developed a double centrifuge based on a rocking process (Schaukelverfahren) to facilitate the separation effect.[1][3][4]

In 1941 Jensen was named extraordinarius professor of theoretical physics at the Technische Hochschule Hannover (today, the

In 1963 Jensen shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the nuclear shell model; the other half of the prize was awarded to Eugene Wigner for unrelated work in nuclear and particle physics.

Jensen died on 11 February, 1973 at Heidelberg aged 65.

Party memberships

Habilitationsschrift, which was a prerequisite to attaining the rank of Privatdozent necessary to becoming a university lecturer.[5][6][7][8]

While all German universities were politicized, not all were as strict in carrying out this end as was the University of Hamburg, where Jensen received his doctorate and Habilitationsschrift. Upon his 1936 habilitation he had been a member of NSDDB for three years, the NSLB for two years, and a candidate for membership in NSDAP, which he received the next year. The university leader of NSLB had made it clear that active participation was expected from Jensen, and that is what they got.[9][10]

After World War II the denazification process began. When Jensen faced the proceedings, he turned to Werner Heisenberg, a prominent member of the Uranverein, for a testament to his character – a document known as a Persilschein (whitewash certificate).[11] Heisenberg was a particularly powerful writer of these documents; as he had never been a member of NSDAP, he had publicly clashed with NSDAP and the Schutzstaffel (SS), and was appointed by the British occupation authorities to the chair for theoretical physics and the directorship of the Max-Planck Institut für Physik then in Göttingen. Heisenberg wrote the document and convinced the authorities that Jensen had joined the Party organizations only to avoid unnecessary difficulties in academia.[12]

Honors

Honors conferred upon Jensen include:[1][2]

Internal reports

The following reports were published in

Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the American Institute of Physics.[13][14]

  • Paul Harteck, Johannes Jensen, Friedrich Knauer, and Hans Suess Über die Bremsung, die Diffusion und den Einfang von Neutronen in fester Kohlensäure und über ihren Einfang in Uran G-36 (19 August 1940)
  • Paul Harteck and Johannes Jesnsen Der Thermodiffusionseffekt im Zusammenspiel mit der Konvektion durch mechanisch bewegte Wände und Vergleich mit der Thermosiphonwirkung G-89 (18 February 1941)
  • Johannes Jensen Über die Ultrazentrifugenmethode zur Trennung der Uranisotope G-95 (December 1941)
  • Paul Harteck and Johannes Jensen Gerechnung des Trenneffektes und der Ausbeute verschiedner Zentrifugenanordnungen zur Erhöhung des Wirkungsgrades einer einselnen Zentrifuge G-158 (February 1943)
  • Paul Harteck, Johannes Jensen, and Albert Suhr Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Ausbeute und Trennschärfe bei der Niederdruckkolonne G-159

Bibliography

Books

  • Konrad Beyerle, Wilhelm Groth, Paul Harteck, and Johannes Jensen Über Gaszentrifugen: Anreicherung der Xenon-, Krypton- und der Selen-Isotope nach dem Zentrifugenverfahren (Chemie, 1950); cited in Walker, 1993, p. 278

Articles

  • Otto Haxel, J. Hans D. Jensen, and Hans E. Suess On the "Magic Numbers" in Nuclear Structure, Phys. Rev. Volume 75, 1766 - 1766 (1949). Institutional affiliations: Haxel: Max-Planck Institut für Physik, Göttingen; Jensen: Institut für theoretische Physik, Heidelberg; and Suess: Inst. für physikalische Chemie, Hamburg. Received 18 April 1949.
  • Helmut Steinwedel, J. Hans D. Jensen, and Peter Jensen Nuclear Dipole Vibrations, Phys. Rev. Volume 79, Issue 6, 1019 - 1019 (1950). Institutional affiliations: Steinwedel and J. H. D. Jensen - Institut für theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg and Peter Jensen - Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg. Received 10 July 1950.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 - J. Hans D. Jensen - Biographical". NobelPrize.org. 25 June 1907. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b c Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 363-364 and Appendix F; see the entry for Johannes Jensen
  3. ^ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, 363-364 and Appendix F; see the entries for Harteck and Johannes Jensen.
  4. ^ Walker, 1993, pp. 121-122
  5. ^ Walker, 1993, pp. 192-204. In these pages, Mark Walker puts into perspective the motivations of and the pressures on students and scientists in the early years of National Socialism in Germany. He addresses the general situation, the Uranverein scientists as a group, and particular cases, e.g., Johannes Jensen, Wilhelm Groth, Karl Wirtz, and Wolfgang Gentner.
  6. ^ Hentschel, 1996, Appendix C; see entries for NSDDB, NSDStB, and the NSLB.
  7. S2CID 122355802
    .
  8. ^ Beyerchen, 1977, pp. 123–167
  9. ^ Walker, 1993, pp. 195-196
  10. ^ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Johannes Jensen.
  11. ^ Persilschein a play on words using the name of the German detergent Persil
  12. ^ Walker, 1993, pp. 192-204
  13. ^ Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix E; see the entry for Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte
  14. ^ Walker, 1993, pp. 268-274

Sources

External links

  • J. Hans D. Jensen on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata including his Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1963 Glimpses at the History of the Nuclear Structure Theory