Kurt Mendelssohn
Kurt Mendelssohn | |
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Franz Eugen Simon | |
Other academic advisors | Max Planck Walther Nernst Erwin Schrödinger Albert Einstein |
Doctoral students | Harold Max Rosenberg |
Signature | |
Kurt Alfred Georg Mendelssohn
Family life
He was the only child of Ernst Moritz Mendelssohn and Elizabeth Ruprecht. Through his grandfather he was a great-great-grandson of Saul Mendelssohn, the younger brother of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.[4] This places him amongst the Mendelssohn family. Francis Simon and Heinrich Mendelssohn were his cousins.[5] He married Jutte Zarniko, the sister of Barbara Zarniko, one of Franz Simon's students in 1932. When James Crowther married Franziska Zarniko in 1934, he became a brother-in-law of Mendelssohn.[6]
Scientific career
He received a doctorate in physics from the
Leaving Germany at the advent of the Nazi regime in 1933, he went to England. He worked at the University of Oxford from 1933. He was Reader in Physics there, 1955–1973, Emeritus Reader, 1973; Emeritus Professorial Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, 1973 (Professorial Fellow, 1971–1973).
His scientific work included low temperature physics, transuranic elements, and medical physics.
He was awarded the Royal Society's Hughes Medal in 1967 and the Simon Memorial Prize in 1968.
The Pyramid Theory
In 1974, he published The Riddle of the Pyramids, in which he sought to explain the whys and wherefores of the earliest
Mendelssohn's pyramid theory suggests explanations to a couple of mysteries in pyramid construction:
- Why in the time of the fourth dynasty, when all of the large Egyptian pyramids were built, there were only three Meidum) five pyramids built.
- According to Mendelssohn the pyramids were constructed as cenotaphs, not as tombs and did not have to coincide with a Pharaoh's lifetime.
- Building of the Great Pyramidsmust have required a large workforce. Considering the state of perfection these pyramids show, a decisive amount of this workforce must have been highly trained professionals. Furthermore, due to the geometrical constraints, the higher a pyramid grows, the fewer people are able to work on it. If the pyramids were built independently of each other and at distinct times, it would have been necessary to assemble and train the workforce for each building and lay them off as the work continued. According to Mendelssohn, as soon as a pyramid had reached about half its final size, work started on the successor to alleviate this problem.
- The change of the angle seen at the Meidum Pyramid, if these monuments were not constructed successively but with an overlap.
Books by Mendelssohn
- The Riddle of the Pyramids. Thames & Hudson, 1974; Sphere Cardinal Edition, 1976.
- The Quest for Absolute Zero. McGraw-Hill, 1966.[8]
- In China Now, 1969.
- The World of Walther Nernst, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973 (hbk); pbk edition, Macmillan, 1973;[9] pbk edition, Plunkett Lake Press, 2019.
- Science and Western Domination, Thames & Hudson, 1976.
References
- JSTOR 769808.
- ^ Kurt Mendelssohn at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- .
- ^ nndb.com. Retrieved 4 May 2009.
- ISBN 978-1-4831-3915-9.
- ^ Hill-Andrews, Oliver (2015). Interpreting Science J G Crowther and the Making of British Inter-War Culture (PDF). University of Sussex.
- ^ S2CID 71750767.
- ISSN 0031-9228.
- S2CID 144041798.