Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber

Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber
Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber
Born	(1911-07-14)July 14, 1911 Mannheim, Germany
Died	February 2, 1998(1998-02-02) (aged 86) Patchogue, New York, United States
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of Illinois 1939-1950 Brookhaven National Laboratory 1950-1979
Alma mater	University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Walther Gerlach
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Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (July 14, 1911 – February 2, 1998) was a German-born Jewish-American nuclear physicist. She earned her PhD. from the University of Munich, and though her family suffered during The Holocaust, Gertrude was able to escape to London and later to the United States. Her research during World War II was classified, and not published until 1946. She and her husband, Maurice Goldhaber, spent most of their post-war careers at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Gertrude Scharff was born in Mannheim, Germany on July 14, 1911. She attended public school, and it is there that she developed an interest in science. Unusual for the time, her parents supported this interest — possibly because her father had wanted to be a chemist before being forced to support his family with the death of his father. Goldhaber's early life was filled with hardship. During World War I she recalled having to eat bread made partially of sawdust, and her family suffered through the hyperinflation of postwar Germany, although it did not prevent her from attending the University of Munich.

At the University of Munich Gertrude quickly developed an interest in physics. Although her family had supported her early interest in science, her father encouraged her to study law at Munich. In defense of her decision to study physics Gertrude told her father, “I’m not interested in the law. I want to understand what the world is made of.”

As was usual for students at the time, Gertrude spent semesters at various other universities including the University of Freiburg, the University of Zurich, and the University of Berlin (where she would meet her future husband) before returning to the University of Munich. Upon returning to Munich Gertrude took up a position with Walter Gerlach to perform her thesis research. In her thesis Gertrude studied the effects of stress on magnetization. She graduated in 1935 and published her thesis in 1936.