Walter Gerlach

About Walter Gerlach

Who is it?: Physicist
Birth Day: August 01, 1889
Birth Place: Biebrich, Rhineland Palatinate, German
Died On: 10 August 1979(1979-08-10) (aged 90)\nMunich, West Germany
Birth Sign: Virgo
Alma mater: Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Known for: Stern–Gerlach experiment Space quantization
Fields: Physics
Institutions: Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Doctoral students: Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber Heinz Billing

Walter Gerlach Net Worth

Walter Gerlach was born on August 01, 1889 in Biebrich, Rhineland Palatinate, German, is Physicist. Walther Gerlach was a brilliant nuclear physicist born in late nineteenth century Germany. Educated at the University of Tübingen, he started assisting his PhD advisor even before he received his PhD degree. Later, he received his Habilitation while serving the German army during the World War I. After the war, he joined University of Frankfurt am Main and there along with Otto Stern started working on the deflections of atoms in non-homogeneous magnetic field and co-discovered spin quantization theory, famously known as Stern-Gerlach Effect. Later, he returned to his alma mater and finally joined Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. Concurrently, he also held many important posts under the Third Reich. After the war he was interned by the Allied forces first in France, then in Belgium and finally in England. After being allowed to return to Germany he first became a visiting professor at the University of Bonn and then was appointed as the Ordinarius Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Munich. This time too, he concurrently held many prestigious positions and towards the end of his life was awarded with Pour le Mérite by the Federal Government of Germany for his extraordinary achievements.
Walter Gerlach is a member of Scientists

💰 Net worth: Under Review

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Biography/Timeline

1908

He studied at the University of Tübingen from 1908, and received his doctorate in 1912, under Friedrich Paschen. The subject of his dissertation was on the measurement of radiation. After obtaining his doctorate, he continued on as an assistant to Paschen, which he had been since 1911. Gerlach completed his Habilitation at Tübingen in 1916, while serving during World War I.

1915

From 1915 to 1918, during the war, Gerlach did Service with the German Army. He worked on wireless telegraphy at Jena under Max Wien. He also served in the Artillerie-Prüfungskommission under Rudolf Ladenburg.

1916

Gerlach became a Privatdozent at the University of Tübingen in 1916. A year later, he became a Privatdozent at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. From 1919 to 1920, he was the head of a physics laboratory of Farbenfabriken Elberfeld, formerly Bayer-Werke.

1925

In 1925, Gerlach took a call and became an ordinarius professor at the University of Tübingen, successor to Friedrich Paschen. In 1929, he took a call and became ordinarius professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, successor to Wilhelm Wien. He held this position until May 1945, when he was arrested by the American and British Armed Forces.

1937

From 1937 until 1945, Gerlach was a member of the supervisory board of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (KWG). After 1946, he continued to be an influential official in its successor organization after World War II, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG).

1944

On 1 January 1944, Gerlach officially became head of the physics section of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) and Bevollmächtigter (plenipotentiary) of nuclear physics, replacing Abraham Esau. In April of that year, he founded the Reichsberichte für Physik, which were official reports appearing as supplements to the Physikalische Zeitschrift.

1945

From May 1945, Gerlach was interned in France and Belgium by British and American Armed Forces under Operation Alsos. From July of that year to January 1946, he was interned in England at Farm Hall under Operation Epsilon, which interned 10 German Scientists who were thought to have participated in the development of atomic weapons.

1946

Upon Gerlach's return to Germany in 1946, he became a visiting professor at the University of Bonn. From 1948, he became an ordinarius professor of experimental physics and Director of the physics department at the University of Munich, a position he held until 1957. He was also rector of the university from 1948 to 1951.

1949

From 1949 to 1951, Gerlach was the founding President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which promotes applied sciences. From 1949 to 1961, he was the vice-president of the Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderung der Forschung (German Association for the Support and Advancement of Scientific Research); also known in short as the Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft (DFG), previously the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft.

1957

In 1957, Gerlach was a co-signer of the Göttingen Manifesto, which was against rearming the Federal Republic of Germany with atomic weapons.