September 27, 2016 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Hans Bethe and Arnold Sommerfeld
Hans Bethe after his schooling, majored in Chemistry from the University of Frankfurt.
There in the laboratories he realized that he was a poor experimentalist.
At the same time he found out that he enjoyed advanced theoretical physics.
His physics mentor at the university Karl Meissner counselled Hans to join a university that had a better physics department.
Under Meissner's recommendation, in 1926 at the age of 20, Hans found himself at the University of Munich under the mentor ship of the legendary German professor Arnold Sommerfeld.
Sommerfeld if you recall had gifted to quantum mechanics the second and the fourth quantum numbers, namely the azimuthal quantum number and the spin quantum number.
Quantum numbers is (or are) a complete numerical description of electrons in an atom.
In general, quantum numbers is capable of describing any formal system with discrete set of integers or half integers.
Beside his original contribution to quantum mechanics, Sommerfeld like J. J. Thomson had a gift for picking out talents and honing and carving them out to become original physicists.
Sommerfeld himself when young was assistant to the great German mathematician Felix Klein whose notes he would jot down assiduously during lectures and later write them up for the mathematics reading room.
Such was his zeal for teaching that Wilhelm Roentgen who was the director Physics Institute in Munich appointed Sommerfeld as the professor and director of the newly established Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Munich.
If you recall my past bed-time stories, all through the 1800s it was the experimental physics in Germany that held the reign of scientific advancement and progress.
By the end of 1800s and early 1900s, thanks to men like Sommerfeld in Munich and Max Born in Göttingen the tables were turned upside down.
For the first time mathematical physics or theoretical physics became the prime over.
Experimental physics would serve largely to verify the predictions made by mathematical physics.
Einstein once told Sommerfeld:
"What I specially admire about you is that you have, as it were, pounded out of the soil such a large number of young talents."
Sommerfeld nurtured a string of brilliant mathematical physicists one of whom was Hans Bethe.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Arnold Sommerfeld with Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
Bedtime Story
Hans Bethe and Arnold Sommerfeld
Hans Bethe after his schooling, majored in Chemistry from the University of Frankfurt.
There in the laboratories he realized that he was a poor experimentalist.
At the same time he found out that he enjoyed advanced theoretical physics.
His physics mentor at the university Karl Meissner counselled Hans to join a university that had a better physics department.
Under Meissner's recommendation, in 1926 at the age of 20, Hans found himself at the University of Munich under the mentor ship of the legendary German professor Arnold Sommerfeld.
Sommerfeld if you recall had gifted to quantum mechanics the second and the fourth quantum numbers, namely the azimuthal quantum number and the spin quantum number.
Quantum numbers is (or are) a complete numerical description of electrons in an atom.
In general, quantum numbers is capable of describing any formal system with discrete set of integers or half integers.
Beside his original contribution to quantum mechanics, Sommerfeld like J. J. Thomson had a gift for picking out talents and honing and carving them out to become original physicists.
Sommerfeld himself when young was assistant to the great German mathematician Felix Klein whose notes he would jot down assiduously during lectures and later write them up for the mathematics reading room.
Such was his zeal for teaching that Wilhelm Roentgen who was the director Physics Institute in Munich appointed Sommerfeld as the professor and director of the newly established Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Munich.
If you recall my past bed-time stories, all through the 1800s it was the experimental physics in Germany that held the reign of scientific advancement and progress.
By the end of 1800s and early 1900s, thanks to men like Sommerfeld in Munich and Max Born in Göttingen the tables were turned upside down.
For the first time mathematical physics or theoretical physics became the prime over.
Experimental physics would serve largely to verify the predictions made by mathematical physics.
Einstein once told Sommerfeld:
"What I specially admire about you is that you have, as it were, pounded out of the soil such a large number of young talents."
Sommerfeld nurtured a string of brilliant mathematical physicists one of whom was Hans Bethe.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Arnold Sommerfeld with Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
Azimuthal Quantum Number
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