Johannes Stark

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Johannes Stark
Technische Hochschule, Aachen
University of Greifswald
University of Würzburg
Doctoral advisorEugen von Lommel

Johannes Stark (German pronunciation:

canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields". This phenomenon is known as the Stark effect
.

Stark received his Ph.D. in physics from the

University of Munich in 1897 under the supervision of Eugen von Lommel, and served as Lommel's assistant until his appointment as a lecturer at the University of Göttingen in 1900. He was an extraordinary professor at Leibniz University Hannover from 1906 until he became a professor at RWTH Aachen University in 1909. In 1917, he became professor at the University of Greifswald, and he also worked at the University of Würzburg
from 1920 to 1922.

A supporter of

German Research Foundation in 1933 and was president of the Reich Physical-Technical Institute from 1933 to 1939. In 1947 he was found guilty as a "Major Offender" by a denazification
court.

Biography

Early years

Born in

University of Munich, where he studied physics, mathematics, chemistry, and crystallography. His tenure at that college began in 1894; he graduated in 1897, with his doctoral dissertation titled Untersuchung über einige physikalische, vorzüglich optische Eigenschaften des Rußes (Investigation of some physical, in particular optical properties of soot).[1]

Career

Stark worked in various positions at the Physics Institute of his

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
.

It was Stark who, as the editor of the Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik, asked in 1907, then still rather unknown,

anti-relativity propagandist in the Deutsche Physik movement.[4]

Stark published more than 300 papers, mainly regarding

Rome Academy. Probably his best known contribution to the field of physics is the Stark effect, which he discovered in 1913. In 1970 the International Astronomical Union honored him with a crater on the far-side of the Moon, without knowing about his Nazi activities.[5] The name was dropped on August 12, 2020.[6]

He married Luise Uepler, and they had five children. His hobbies were the cultivation of fruit trees and forestry. He worked in his private laboratory, which he set up using his Nobel prize money, on his country estate in Upper Bavaria after the second world war. There he studied the deflection of light in an electric field.[7]

Affiliation with Nazism

From 1924 onwards, Stark supported Hitler.[8] During the Nazi regime, Stark attempted to become the Führer of German physics through the Deutsche Physik ("German physics") movement (along with fellow Nobel laureate Philipp Lenard) against the "Jewish physics" of Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg (who was not Jewish). After Werner Heisenberg defended Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, Stark wrote an angry article in the official SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps, calling Heisenberg a "White Jew".[8]

On August 21, 1934, Stark wrote to physicist and fellow Nobel laureate Max von Laue, telling him to toe the party line or suffer the consequences. The letter was signed off with "Heil Hitler."[9]

In his 1934 book Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft (English: "National Socialism and Science") Stark maintained that the priority of the scientist was to serve the nation—thus, the important fields of research were those that could help German arms production and industry. He attacked theoretical physics as "Jewish" and stressed that scientific positions in Nazi Germany should only be held by pure-blooded Germans.

Writing in Das Schwarze Korps, Stark argued that even if racial antisemitism were to triumph, it would only be a 'partial victory' if 'Jewish' ideas were not similarly defeated: "We also have to eradicate the Jewish spirit, whose blood can flow just as undisturbed today as before if its carriers hold beautiful Aryan passes".[10]

In 1947, following the defeat of Germany in World War II, Stark was classified as a "Major Offender" and received a sentence of four years' imprisonment (later suspended) by a denazification court.

Later life and death

Stark spent the last years of his life on his Gut Eppenstatt near Traunstein in Upper Bavaria, where he died in 1957 at the age of 83. He was buried in Schönau am Königssee in the mountain cemetery.[11]

See also

Publications

  • Die Entladung der Elektricität von galvanisch glühender Kohle in verdünntes Gas. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899
  • Der elektrische Strom zwischen galvanisch glühender Kohle und einem Metall durch verdünntes Gas. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899
  • Aenderung der Leitfähigkeit von Gasen durch einen stetigen elektrischen Strom. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 2). Leipzig, 1900
  • Ueber den Einfluss der Erhitzung auf das elektrische Leuchten eines verdünnten Gases. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900
  • Ueber elektrostatische Wirkungen bei der Entladung der Elektricität in verdünnten Gasen. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900
  • Kritische Bemerkungen zu der Mitteilung der Herren Austin und Starke über Kathodenstrahlreflexion. Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jahrgang 4, Nr. 8). Braunschweig, 1902
  • Prinzipien der Atomdynamik. 1. Teil. Die elektrischen Quanten., 1910
  • Schwierigkeiten für die Lichtquantenhypothese im Falle der Emission von Serienlinien. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jg. XVI, Nr 6). Braunschweig, 1914
  • Bemerkung zum Bogen – und Funkenspektrum des Heliums. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 10). Braunschweig, 1914
  • Folgerungen aus einer Valenzhypothese. III. Natürliche Drehung der Schwingungsebene des Lichtes. (Sonderabdruck aus `Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik', Heft 2, Mai 1914), Leipzig, 1914
  • Methode zur gleichzeitigen Zerlegung einer Linie durch das elektrische und das magnetische Feld. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 7). Braunschweig, 1914
  • Die gegenwärtige Krise der deutschen Physik, ("The Thoroughgoing Crisis in German Physics") 1922
  • Natur der chemischen Valenzkräfte, 1922
  • Hitlergeist und Wissenschaft, 1924 together with Philipp Lenard
  • Die Axialität der Lichtemission und Atomstruktur, Berlin 1927
  • Atomstruktur und Atombindung, A. Seydel, Berlin 1928
  • Atomstrukturelle Grundlagen der Stickstoffchemie., Leipzig, 1931
  • Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche, ("National Socialism and the Catholic Church") 1931
  • Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche. II. Teil: Antwort auf Kundgebungen der deutschen Bischöfe., 1931
  • Nationale Erziehung, 1932
  • Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft ("National Socialism and Science") 1934
  • Stark, J. (1938). "The Pragmatic and the Dogmatic Spirit in Physics".
    doi:10.1038/141770a0
    .
  • Physik der Atomoberfläche, 1940
  • Jüdische und deutsche Physik, ("Jewish and German Physics") with
    University of Munich
    in 1941
  • Nationale Erziehung, Zentrumsherrschaft und Jesuitenpolitik, undated
  • Hitlers Ziele und Persönlichkeit ("Hitler's Aims and Personality"), undated

Notes

  1. ^ Entry in the catalogue of the Bavarian State Library, MunIch. Opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de. Retrieved on 2012-07-27.
  2. ^ Stark, J. (1907). "Elementarquantum der Energie, Modell der negativen und der positiven Elekrizitat". Physikalische Zeitschrift. 24 (8): 881.
  3. ^ Einstein, A. (1907). "Ueber das Relativitatprinzip und die aus demselb gezogenen Folgerungen". Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik. IV: 411. Translated in Schwartz, H. M. (1977) Einstein's comprehensive 1907 essay on relativity, parts I, II, III Archived 2013-03-15 at the Wayback Machine, American Journal of Physics, June, September and October, 1977.
  4. ISBN 0-8176-3624-2
  5. ^ Philipp Ball (26 June 2020). "Astronomers unknowingly dedicated moon craters to Nazis". prospectmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  6. ^ Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
  7. ^ Johannes Stark – Biography. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 2012-07-27.
  8. ^ a b Ball, Philip (2014). Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler. The University of Chicago Press.
  9. ISBN 978-0-9777908-8-3
  10. ^ Stone, Dan "Nazi Race Ideologues", in Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 50, Issue 4-5 (2016), p. 452.
  11. ^ UKw: Ausflug in die Vergangenheit Bericht vom 9. Juli 2013 im Berchtesgadener Anzeiger über eine geschichtliche Führung von Alfred Spiegel-Schmidt über den Bergfriedhof, online unter berchtesgadener-anzeiger

References

  • Andreas Kleinert: "Die Axialität der Lichtemission und Atomstruktur". Johannes Starks Gegenentwurf zur Quantentheorie. In: Astrid Schürmann, Burghard Weiss (Eds.): Chemie – Kultur – Geschichte. Festschrift für Hans-Werner Schütt anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstages. Berlin u. Diepholz 2002, pp. 213–222.

External links

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