Rudolf Mößbauer

Rudolf Mössbauer
R. L. Mössbauer, 1961
Born	Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer (1929-01-31)31 January 1929 Munich, Weimar Republic
Died	14 September 2011(2011-09-14) (aged 82) Grünwald, Germany
Fields	Nuclear and atomic physics
Institutions	Technical University of Munich Caltech
Alma mater	Technical University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Heinz Maier-Leibnitz
Known for	Mössbauer effect Mössbauer spectroscopy
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1961) Elliott Cresson Medal (1961) Lomonosov Gold Medal (1984)

Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer (German spelling: Mößbauer; 31 January 1929 – 14 September 2011) was a German physicist best known for his 1957 discovery of recoilless nuclear resonance fluorescence for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics. This effect, called the Mössbauer effect, is the basis for Mössbauer spectroscopy.

Mössbauer was born in Munich, where he also studied physics at the Technical University of Munich. He prepared his Diplom thesis in the Laboratory of Applied Physics of Heinz Maier-Leibnitz and graduated in 1955. He then went to the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. Since this institute, not being part of a university, had no right to award a doctorate, Mössbauer remained under the auspices of Maier-Leibnitz, who was his official thesis advisor when he passed his PhD exam in Munich in 1958.

In his PhD work, he discovered recoilless nuclear fluorescence of gamma rays in 191 iridium, the Mössbauer effect. His fame grew immensely in 1960 when Robert Pound and Glen Rebka used this effect to prove the red shift of gamma radiation in the gravitational field of the Earth; this Pound–Rebka experiment was one of the first experimental precision tests of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The long-term importance of the Mössbauer effect, however, is its use in Mössbauer spectroscopy. Along with Robert Hofstadter, Rudolf Mössbauer was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics.