Victor Hess

Victor Franz Hess (German: [ˈvɪktɔʁ ˈfʁants ˈhɛs]; 24 June 1883 – 17 December 1964) was an Austrian-American atmospheric physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl David Anderson "for his discovery of cosmic radiation".^[2]

Victor Hess
Hess in 1936
Born	Victor Franz Hess (1883-06-24)24 June 1883 Deutschfeistritz, Duchy of Styria, Austria-Hungary
Died	17 December 1964(1964-12-17) (aged 81) Mount Vernon, New York, US
Citizenship	Austria United States (from 1944)
Alma mater	University of Graz University of Vienna (Dr. phil.)
Known for	Discovering cosmic rays (1912)
Spouses	Marie Breisky ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1955)​ Elizabeth Hoenke ​ (m. 1955)​
Awards	Lieben Prize (1919) Nobel Prize in Physics (1936) Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1959)
Scientific career
Fields	Atmospheric physics
Institutions	Institute for Radium Research (1910–20) US Radium Corporation, US Bureau of Mines (1921–23) University of Graz (1923–31) University of Innsbruck (1931–38) Fordham University (1938–58)
Academic advisors	Franz S. Exner[1] Leopold Pfaundler[1]

Early life and career

Victor Franz Hess was born on 24 June 1883 at Waldstein Castle in the Duchy of Styria, the son of Vinzenz Hess and Serafine Edle von Grossbauer-Waldstätt. His father was a royal forester in Prince Louis of Oettingen-Wallerstein's service. He attended secondary school at Graz Gymnasium from 1893 to 1901.^[3][4]

Hess was educated at the Universities of Graz and Vienna, receiving his Ph.D. from the latter in 1906.^[5] He worked as Assistant under Stefan Meyer at the Institute for Radium Research from 1910 to 1920.

Hess took a leave of absence in 1921 and traveled to the United States, working at the United States Radium Corporation, in New Jersey, and as consulting physicist for the US Bureau of Mines, in Washington, D.C. In 1923, he returned to the University of Graz, and was appointed Ordinary Professor of Experimental Physics in 1925. The University of Innsbruck appointed him professor, and Director of the Institute of Radiology, in 1931.^[3]

Hess relocated to the United States with his Jewish wife in 1938, in order to escape Nazi persecution. The same year, Fordham University appointed him Professor of Physics, and he became a naturalized US citizen in 1944.^[6][7]

Discovery of cosmic rays

Hess (center) at work

Between 1911 and 1913, Hess undertook the work that won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936. For many years, scientists had been puzzled by the levels of ionizing radiation measured in the atmosphere. The assumption at the time was that the radiation would decrease as the distance from the earth, the then assumed source of the radiation, increased. The electroscopes previously used gave an approximate measurement of the radiation but indicated that at greater altitude in the atmosphere the level of radiation might actually be higher than that on the ground. Hess approached this mystery first by greatly increasing the precision of the measuring equipment, and then by personally taking the equipment aloft in a balloon. He systematically measured the radiation at altitudes up to 5.3 kilometres (3.3 mi) during 1911–1912. The daring flights were made both by day and during the night, at significant risk to himself.^[4]

The result of Hess's meticulous work was published in the Proceedings of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and showed the level of radiation decreased up to an altitude of about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi), but above that the level increased considerably, with the radiation detected at 5 kilometres (3.1 mi), being about twice that at sea level.^[8] His conclusion was that there was radiation penetrating the atmosphere from outer space, and his discovery was confirmed by Robert Andrews Millikan in 1925, who gave the radiation the name "cosmic rays". Hess's discovery opened the door to many new discoveries in particle and nuclear physics.^[4] In particular, both the positron and the muon were first discovered in cosmic rays by Carl David Anderson. Hess and Anderson shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Personal life

In 1920, Hess married Marie Bertha Warner Breisky, who died from cancer in 1955.^[2] The same year, he married Elizabeth M. Hoenke, the woman who nursed Marie at the end of her life.^[6]

Hess was a practicing Roman Catholic,^[9] and in 1946, he wrote on the topic of the relationship between science and religion in his article "My Faith", in which he explained why he believed in God.^[10][11] He retired from Fordham University in 1958, and he died from Parkinson's disease on 17 December 1964 in Mount Vernon, New York.^[2]

Honours and awards

• Lieben Prize (1919)
• Abbe Memorial Prize
• Abbe Medal of the Carl Zeiss Institute, Jena (1932)
• Nobel Prize in Physics (1936)
• Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1959)^[12]
• A lunar crater is named after Hess

Publications

• Hess, Victor F. (1928). The Electrical Conductivity of the Atmosphere and Its Causes. Constable & Company. OCLC 1900377.