Oskar Benjamin Klein (September 15 1894 - February 5 1977) was a
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
theoretical
physicistA 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...
.
Klein was born in
DanderydDanderyd Municipality is a municipality just north of Stockholm in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. It is one of the smallest municipalities of Sweden, but the most affluent...
outside
Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
, son of the chief rabbi of Stockholm, Dr. Gottlieb Klein and Antonie (Toni) Levy. He became a student of
Svante ArrheniusSvante August Arrhenius was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry...
at the Nobel Institute at a young age, and was on the way to Jean-Baptiste Perrin in France when World War I broke out and he was drafted into the military.
From 1917 he worked a few years with
Niels BohrNiels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
in
CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
and received his doctoral degree at the University College of Stockholm (now
Stockholm UniversityStockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 27,500 students at four faculties, being one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
) in 1921.
Oskar Benjamin Klein (September 15 1894 - February 5 1977) was a
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
theoretical
physicistA 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...
.
Klein was born in
DanderydDanderyd Municipality is a municipality just north of Stockholm in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. It is one of the smallest municipalities of Sweden, but the most affluent...
outside
Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
, son of the chief rabbi of Stockholm, Dr. Gottlieb Klein and Antonie (Toni) Levy. He became a student of
Svante ArrheniusSvante August Arrhenius was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry...
at the Nobel Institute at a young age, and was on the way to Jean-Baptiste Perrin in France when World War I broke out and he was drafted into the military.
From 1917 he worked a few years with
Niels BohrNiels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
in
CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
and received his doctoral degree at the University College of Stockholm (now
Stockholm UniversityStockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 27,500 students at four faculties, being one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
) in 1921. In 1923 he received a professorship at
University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
in
Ann ArborAnn Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. It is the state's seventh largest city with a population of 114,024 as of the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 are university or college students...
and moved there with his recently wedded wife, Gerda Koch from Denmark. Klein returned to Copenhagen in 1925, spent some time with
Paul EhrenfestPaul Ehrenfest was an Austrian physicist and mathematician, who obtained Dutch citizenship on March 24, 1922. He made major contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition and the Ehrenfest theorem...
in
LeidenLeiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands and has 118,000 inhabitants. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities...
, then became
docentDocent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor...
at
Lund UniversityLund University is a university located in Lund in southernmost Sweden, and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...
in 1926 and in 1930 accepted the offer of the professorial chair in physics at the Stockholm University College, which had previously been held by Ivar Fredholm until his death in 1927; Klein retired as professor emeritus in 1962. He was awarded the
Max Planck medalThe Max Planck medal is an award for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. It is awarded annually by the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft , the world's largest organization of physicists.- List of recipients :...
in 1959.
Klein is credited for inventing the idea, part of Kaluza-Klein theory, that extra
dimensionIn mathematics and physics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
s may be physically real but curled up and very small, an idea essential to
string theoryString theory is a developing branch of theoretical physics that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum theory of gravity...
/
M-theoryIn theoretical physics, M-theory is an extension of string theory in which 11 dimensions are identified. Because the dimensionality exceeds the dimensionality of five superstring theories in 10 dimensions, it is believed that the 11-dimensional theory unifies all string theories...
.
The
Oskar Klein Memorial LectureThe Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture at Stockholm University, dedicated to the memory of the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein , is held annually since 1988 by a prominent physicist, who also receives the Oskar Klein Medal...
, held annually at the University of Stockholm, has been named after him.
See also
- Klein-Gordon equation
The Klein–Gordon equation is a relativistic version of the Schrödinger equation....
- Klein-Nishina formula
The Klein–Nishina formulagives the differential cross section of photons scattered from a single electron in lowest order ofquantum electrodynamics...
- Klein fluid
- Alfvén-Klein model
- Klein paradox
In 1929, physicist Oskar Klein obtained a surprising result by applying the Dirac equation to the familiar problem of electron scattering from a potential barrier. In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, electron tunneling into a barrier is observed, with exponential damping...
External links