Adolf Kratzer

B. Adolf Kratzer (October 16, 1893 – July 6, 1983) was a German theoretical physicist who made contributions to atomic physics and molecular physics, and was an authority on molecular band spectroscopy. He was born in Günzburg and died in Münster.

From 1912 to 1914, Kratzer studied physics at the Technische Hochschule München (today, Technische Universität München), and then he spent two years in the army, after which he began studies at the University of Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld. He was granted his doctor of philosophy in 1920; his thesis was on the band spectra of molecules. While at Munich, he was Sommerfeld’s assistant; he had been trained by Sommerfeld’s assistant and student Wilhelm Lenz to fill this role. While at Munich, Kratzer extended the theory of diatomic molecular spectroscopy by including anharmonic forces between the nuclei, which changed the oscillation frequencies. It was Sommerfeld’s practice to send some of his assistants to be personal assistants for physics to the mathematician David Hilbert, at the University of Göttingen. Kratzer was sent to Göttingen during the period 1920 to 1921. Upon his return to Munich, he became a Privatdozent, and it was during this time that he became acquainted with Werner Heisenberg, also a student of Sommerfeld.

Based on his work at Munich, it was in 1922 that Krazter’s detailed analysis on the cyanide spectroscopic bands was published. His analysis resulted in the introduction of half-integral quantum numbers to account for molecular rotation. During 1922, he was also called as an ordinarius professor of theoretical physics to the University of Münster. Here, Kratzer made contributions to quantum mechanics and became a leading authority in the field of molecular band spectroscopy.

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