Theodor Kaluza
Theodor F. E. Kaluza | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 19 January 1954 | (aged 68)
Alma mater | University of Königsberg |
Known for | Kaluza–Klein theory |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematical physics |
Theodor Franz Eduard Kaluza (German:
Life
Kaluza was born to a
Kaluza's insight is remembered as the Kaluza–Klein theory (named also after physicist Oskar Klein). However, the work was neglected for many years, as attention was directed towards quantum mechanics. His idea that fundamental forces can be explained by additional dimensions was not reused until string theory was developed. It is, however, also notable that many of the aspects of this body of work were already published in 1914 by Gunnar Nordström, but his work also went unnoticed and was not recognized when the ideas were reused.
For the rest of his career Kaluza continued to produce ideas about relativity and about models of the
Personal life
Kaluza was extraordinarily versatile. He spoke or wrote 17 languages. He also had an unusually modest personality. He refused the Nazi ideology, and his appointment to the Göttingen professorship was possible only with difficulties and by assistance of his colleague Helmut Hasse. Strange stories were told of his private life, for example, that he taught himself to swim during his thirties by reading a book about it and succeeded at his first attempt in the water.
Kaluza had a son (1910-1994), also named Theodor Kaluza , who was a notable mathematician.
See also
Notes
- ^ Daniela Wuensch. Kaluza—Klein Theory. Compendium of Quantum Physics 2009, pp. 328–331.
- ^ a b Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1918) (Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1918)). archive.org. pp. 966–974.
- Ricci tensor...], so für den die maxwellschen gleichen gem fur die komponenten des verstorms [...] der raumzeitliche energietensor is also im wesentlichen mir stromdichte zu randern (Tr., Since then (for all three types of field equations) [... Ricci-flat manifold...], So for the same according to Maxwell's for the components of the verstorms [...] the spatio-temporal energy tensor thus essentially current density are random)).
References
- Biography of Kaluza from the MacTutor archive
- Theodor Kaluza at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Biography of Kaluza (book with 748 pages in German by Daniela Wuensch) from the Termessos publishing house
- Daniela Wünsch, "Der Erfinder der fünften Dimension", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, January 21, 2004 (article in German).
- Articles (some in English) about Kaluza by Daniela Wuensch