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Hans Geiger
German nuclear physicist (1882–1945) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Johannes Wilhelm Geiger (US: /ˈɡaɪɡər/ GYE-ger, UK: /ˈɡaɪɡə/ GYE-guh;[2] German: [ˈɡaɪɡɐ] ⓘ; 30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945) was a German nuclear physicist. He is known as the inventor of the Geiger counter, a device used to detect ionizing radiation, and for carrying out the Rutherford scattering experiments, which led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus. He also performed the Bothe–Geiger coincidence experiment, which confirmed the conservation of energy in light-particle interactions.
He was the brother of meteorologist and climatologist Rudolf Geiger.
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Geiger was born in 1882 in Neustadt an der Haardt. He was one of five children born to the Indologist Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger, who was a professor at the University of Erlangen. In 1902, Geiger started studying physics and mathematics at Erlangen and was awarded a doctorate in 1906.[3] His thesis was on electrical discharges through gases.[4] He received a fellowship to the University of Manchester and worked as an assistant to Arthur Schuster. In 1907, after Schuster's retirement, Geiger began to work with his successor, Ernest Rutherford, and in 1908, along with Ernest Marsden, conducted the famous Geiger–Marsden experiment (also known as the "gold foil experiment"). This process allowed them to count alpha particles[5][6][7][4] and led Rutherford to start thinking about the structure of the atom. He was elected to membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 29 November 1910.
In 1911, Geiger and John Mitchell Nuttall discovered the Geiger–Nuttall law (or rule) and performed experiments that led to Rutherford's atomic model.[8]
In 1912, Geiger was named head of radiation research at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (Imperial Physical Technical Institute – PTR) in Charlottenburg. There he worked with Walter Bothe (winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics) and James Chadwick (winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics).[9] Work was interrupted when Geiger served in the German military during World War I as an artillery officer from 1914 to 1918.
In 1924, Geiger and Walther Bothe carried out the Bothe–Geiger coincidence experiment that confirmed the Compton effect, which helped earn Arthur Compton the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics.[4] Bothe would also receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for their experiment in 1954, after Geiger's death.[10]
In 1925, he began a teaching position at the University of Kiel where, in 1928, Geiger and his student Walther Müller created the Geiger–Müller tube. This new device not only detected alpha particles, but also beta and gamma particles, and is the basis for the Geiger counter.[11][12] Geiger was awarded the Hughes Medal in 1929 for this work.
In 1929, Geiger was named professor of physics and director of research at the University of Tübingen where he made his first observations of a cosmic ray shower. In 1936, he took a position with Technische Universität Berlin where he continued to research cosmic rays, nuclear fission, and artificial radiation until his death in 1945.[4]
Beginning in 1939, after the discovery of nuclear fission, Geiger was a member of the Uranium Club, the German investigation of nuclear weapons during World War II. The group splintered in 1942 after its members came to believe that nuclear weapons would not play a significant role in ending the war.[9]
Although Geiger signed a petition against the Nazi government's interference with universities, he provided no support to colleague Hans Bethe (winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics) when he was fired for being Jewish.[13][14]
Geiger endured the Battle of Berlin and subsequent Soviet occupation in April/May 1945. A couple of months later he moved to Potsdam, dying there on 24 September 1945.
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