Guido Beck
Encyclopedia
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...
born in what was then the town of Reichenberg
Reichenberg
Reichenberg may refer to the following places:*Reichenberg, the German name for Liberec, a town in the Czech Republic*Reichenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, a municipality in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany*Reichenberg, Bavaria, a municipality in Bavaria, Germany...
in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, and is now Liberec
Liberec
Liberec is a city in the Czech Republic. Located on the Lusatian Neisse and surrounded by the Jizera Mountains and Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge, it is the fifth-largest city in the Czech Republic....
in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. He studied physics in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and received his doctorate in 1925, under Hans Thirring
Hans Thirring
Hans Thirring was an Austrian theoretical physicist, professor, and father of the physicist Walter Thirring....
. He worked in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in 1928 as an assistant to Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...
. A combination of the troubled political climate of Europe in the 1930s, his own restlessness, and the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
persecutions in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, made the Jewish-born Beck a traveler in those years. Until 1935 he worked in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
with Ernest Rutherford, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
In 1935 Beck was invited to work in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
by Head of the Institute of Physics, Odessa University E.Kirillov. At the Odessa University
Odessa University
The I. I. Mechnikov Odessa National University , located in Odessa, Ukraine, is one of the country's major universities. It was founded in 1865, by an edict of Czar Alexander II of Russia, reorganizing the Richelieu Lyceum of Odessa into the new Imperial Novorossiya University. In the Soviet...
Beck head of the Department of Theoretical Physics and gave a course of theoretical physics in German; lectures were simultaneously translated into Ukrainian by assistant Yu.G. Vekshtein. In 1936-1937 Beck head of the department of theoretical mechanics at the Institute of Water Transport Engineers in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
. Four of his Odessa students - VV Malyarov, MM Alperin, GV Skrotskii and PE Nemirovsky - became professors in Odessa and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
In 1937 Guido Beck moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he was imprisoned when World War II broke out. In 1941, he fled to Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, and in 1943 he emigrated to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
In Argentina, he was instrumental in training several Argentinian physicists, including José Antonio Balseiro
José Antonio Balseiro
José Antonio Balseiro was an Argentine physicist.Balseiro studied at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in his home city, before moving to La Plata to study and research, obtaining a doctorate in physics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. His doctoral dissertation was directed by Dr...
, and had a profound impact in developing physics in Argentina. He moved once more, this time to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, in 1951, where his influence in developing physics was also great.
He was called back to Argentina in 1962, after the death of Balseiro, and continued his work at the Instituto Balseiro
Instituto Balseiro
Balseiro Institute is an academic institution chartered by the National University of Cuyo and the National Atomic Energy Commission...
.
In 1975 he returned to Brazil, and worked in the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas
Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas
The Brazilian Center for Physics Research is a physics research center sponsored by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development , linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology. CBPF was founded in 1949 from a joint effort of Cesar Lattes, José Leite Lopes, and...
(CBPF).
Apart from his influence as a teacher in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
he contributed to a theory of beta-decay, which was later superseded by a more complete theory by Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
. He was a friend of the famous writer Ernesto Sabato
Ernesto Sabato
Ernesto Sabato , was an Argentine writer, painter and physicist. According to the BBC he "won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hispanic literature" and "became very influential in the literary world throughout Latin America"...
.
He died in a car accident in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
in 1988.
Honours
- In 1977 he was given the doctoral degree of honour by the Darmstadt University of TechnologyDarmstadt University of TechnologyThe Technische Universität Darmstadt, abbreviated TU Darmstadt, is a university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany...
, Germany for his exemplary activity as an academic teacher and his relentless efforts in establishing research institutions in physics.