Otto Lehmann (physicist)
Otto Lehmann | |
---|---|
University of Strassburg | |
Known for | Flowing crystals |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | Aachen & Karlsruhe |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Heinrich von Groth |
Otto Lehmann (13 January 1855 in Konstanz, Germany – 17 June 1922 in Karlsruhe) was a German physicist and "father" of liquid crystal.
Life
Otto was the son of Franz Xavier Lehmann, a mathematics teacher in the Baden-Wurtemberg school system, with a strong interest in
University of Strassburg and obtained the Ph.D. under crystallographer Paul Groth
.
Otto used polarizers in a microscope so that he might watch for birefringence appearing in the process of crystallization.
Initially becoming a school teacher for physics, mathematics and chemistry in
Karlsruhe
.
Lehmann received a letter from Friedrich Reinitzer asking for confirmation of some unusual observations. As Dunmur and Sluckin(2011) say
- It was Lehmann's jealously guarded and increasingly prestigious microscope, not yet available off the shelf, which had attracted Reinitzer's attention. With Reinitzer's peculiar double-melting liquid, a problem in search of a scientist had met a scientist in search of a problem.
The article "On Flowing Crystals" that Lehmann wrote for
phase of matter involved, and leaves in its wake the science of liquid crystals
.
Lehmann was an unsuccessful nominee for a Nobel Prize from 1913 to 1922.
Work
- Selbstanfertigung physikalischer Apparate. Leipzig 1885.
- Molekularphysik (i.e. Molecular physics). 2 Bde, Leipzig 1888/89.
- Die Kristallanalyse (i.e. The Analysis of Crystals). Leipzig 1891.
- Elektricität und Licht (i.e. Electricity and Light). Braunschweig 1895.
- Flüssige Krystalle (i.e. Liquid Crystals). Leipzig 1904.
- Die scheinbar lebenden Krystalle. Eßlingen 1907.
- Die wichtigsten Begriffe und Gesetze der Physik. Berlin 1907.
- Flüssige Kristalle und ihr scheinbares Leben. Forschungsergebnisse dargestellt in einem Kinofilm. Voss, Leipzig 1921.
References
- David Dunmur & Tim Sluckin (2011), Soap, Science, and Flat-screen TVs: a history of liquid crystals, pp 20–7, ISBN 978-0-19-954940-5.
- Michel Mitov (2014), Liquid-Crystal Science from 1888 to 1922: Building a Revolution, in ChemPhysChem, vol. 15, pp 1245–1250.