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Gustav Hertz (1887–1975)

1925 Physics

For their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom.

Gustav Ludwig Hertz was not the first member of his family to distinguish himself in the field of physics. In the year he was born, his uncle Heinrich discovered the photoelectric effect and in 1888 demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves. Conducting experiments of great importance to radio technology, Heinrich Hertz gave his name to a unit of frequency.

The son of a lawyer, Gustav was born in Hamburg on the July 22, 1887. He began his academic studies at the University of Göttingen at the age of 19 and continued them at the universities of Berlin and Munich. He graduated in 1911, and two years later he was a research assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Berlin.

In 1914 Hertz was mobilized and served in the trenches of World War I, where he was seriously wounded the following year. He returned to Berlin in 1917 as a teacher, and between 1920 and 1925 he worked in the physics laboratory of the Phillips incandescent lamp factory in Eindhoven.

In 1935 he was made head of the research laboratory at Siemens after resigning from his position as director of the Physics Institute of the Charlottenburg Technological University. He had held the position since 1928 and resigned for political reasons. However, he developed a method to separate neon isotopes, among other discoveries, while at the institute.

Gustav Hertz’s first professional experiments, conducted in 1913, were on the impact of accelerated electrons against the atoms of rarefied gases. Before being mobilized for the war, he dedicated much time and patience to the study of the ionization potential of various gases. The results of his research corresponded with Niels Bohr’s theory on atomic structure, which, in turn, applied the quantum theory drawn up by Max Planck — these three Nobel recipients provided the foundation for modern physics.