Wien, Wilhelm


Wien, Wilhelm

(vĭl`hĕlm vēn), 1864–1928, German physicist. He was professor at the universities of Giessen (1899), Würzburg (1900–1920), and Munich (from 1920). He received the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physics for his studies on the radiation of heat from black objects. He is noted also for his work on hydrodynamics, X rays, and the radiation of light.

Wien, Wilhelm

 

Born Jan. 13, 1864, in Gaffken, East Prussia; died Aug. 30, 1928, in Munich. German physicist. Graduated from the University of Berlin in 1886. From 1892 to 1896 he was an assistant professor at the University of Berlin, from 1896 to 1899 a professor at the polytechnic in Aachen, and after 1900 a professor at the Universities of Wiirzburg and Munich.

In 1893, Wien derived theoretically the law for the radiation of a blackbody and showed that the radiation energy maximum shifts along the spectrum as the temperature in-creases. He received the Nobel Prize in 1911.

Wien did research on the deflection of canal rays in electric and magnetic fields and developed a method of measuring the duration of the luminescence of free atoms. He is one of the authors of the multivolume work Handbook of Experimental Physics.

WORKS

“Über die Energieverteilung im Emissionsspektrum eines schwarzen Körpers.” Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 1896, vol. 58, fasc. 8.
“Methode zur Priifung des Strahlungsgesetzes absolut schwarzer Körper.” Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 1895, vol. 56, fasc. 11. (With O. Zummer.)

REFERENCE

Rüchardt, E.“Zur Erinnerung an Wilhelm Wien bei der 25. Wiederkehr seines Todestages.” Naturwissenschaften, 1955, vol. 42, no. 3.