Egon Schweidler
Encyclopedia
Egon Schweidler, was an Austrian
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

 physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

.

Biography

He was born in 1873 as the son of the court and Gerichtsadvokaten Emil von Schweidler born in Vienna. After studying physics and mathematics, he earned his doctorate with a dissertation "On the internal friction of mercury and some Amalgamen" (1985). He was assistant to Franz Exner.

Career

In 1899, he went to the University of Vienna. In 1911 he was appointed as an associate professor. From 1911 to1926, he was the head of the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck, where he was dean in 1924 and rector in 1925/26. In 1926, he returned as per his appeal as an Ordinary II at the Physics Institute of the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

. There, he also worked as a secretary (1929-1933), Secretary-General (1933-1938), and Vice President (1939-1945) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1933, he was also elected chairman of the German Physical Society.

Legacy

From an historical view, his major works in the field of atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network . The Earth's surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit...

 should be mentioned. Schweidler's scientific work was recognized very early (1907) with the award of "Baumgartner Prize" of the Vienna Academy of Sciences for the study of the anomalies in the behavior of dielectric
Dielectric
A dielectric is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material, as in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric...

s. He pointed (in 1899) with Stefan Meyer
Stefan Meyer (physicist)
Stefan Meyer was an Austrian physicist involved in research on radioactivity. He became director of the Institute for Radium Research in Vienna and received the Lieben Prize in 1913 for his research on radium...

, among others, the statistical nature of the radioactive decay
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...

 or the magnetic deflection of beta radiation as fast electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...

s. His predicted variations (1905) of the ionization
Ionization
Ionization is the process of converting an atom or molecule into an ion by adding or removing charged particles such as electrons or other ions. This is often confused with dissociation. A substance may dissociate without necessarily producing ions. As an example, the molecules of table sugar...

 radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...

formed in the end a large number of theoretical and experimental investigations.

Publications

  • Die atmosphärische Elektrizität, 1903 (mit H. Mach)
    • TR: The atmospheric electricity, 1903 (with H. Mach)
  • Über Schwankungen der radioaktiven Umwandlung, Comptes Rendus du Premier Congres International pour L’etude de la Radiologie et de Ionisation, Liege, 12.-14.
    • TR: About fluctuations of the radioactive transformation, Comptes Rendus Prime du Congres International pour la de L'etude et de Radiologie ionization, Liege, 12.-14. September 1905 September 1905
  • Standardwerk über Radioaktivität, (mit S. Meyer), 1916 (2. Auflage 1927)
    • TR:Standard work on radioactivity, (with S. Meyer), 1916 (2nd edition 1927)

Sources

  • Berta Karlik, Erich Schmid: Franz Serafin Exner und sein Kreis. Verlag der Österreichischen Akadademie der Wissenschaft, Wien 1982, ISBN 3-7001-0437-5
    • TR: Franz Exner and his circle.
  • Wolfgang L. Reiter: Stefan Meyer: Pioneer of Radioactivity. Physics in Perspective. Volume 3, Issue 1, pp. 106-127, 2001 106-127 2001
  • Max von Laue: History of Physics. 1966
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