Victor Franz Hess
| Victor Franz Hess | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Victor Franz Hess 24 June 1883 Schloss Waldstein, Peggau, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 17 December 1964 (aged 81) Mount Vernon, New York, USA |
| Nationality | Austro-Hungarian, Austria, United States |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
University of Graz Austrian Academy of Sciences University of Innsbruck Fordham University |
| Alma mater | University of Graz |
| Known for | Discovery of cosmic rays |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Physics (1936) |
| Spouse |
Marie Bertha Warner Breisky (m. 1920–55) Elizabeth M. Hoenke (m. 1955–64) (1905-1973) |
Victor Franz Hess (24 June 1883 – 17 December 1964) was an Austrian-American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics, who discovered cosmic rays.
He was born to Vinzenz Hess and Serafine Edle von Grossbauer-Waldstätt, in , near Peggau in Styria, Austria on 24 June 1883. His father was a royal forester in Prince Louis of Oettingen-Wallerstein's service. He attended secondary school at Graz Gymnasium from 1893 to 1901.
From 1901 to 1905 Hess was an undergraduate student at the University of Graz, and continued postgraduate studies in physics until he received his PhD there in 1910. He worked as Assistant under Stefan Meyer at the Institute for Radium Research, Viennese Academy of Sciences, from 1910 to 1920.
In 1920 he married Marie Bertha Warner Breisky.
Hess took a leave of absence in 1921 and travelled to the United States, working at the United States Radium Corporation, in New Jersey, and as Consulting Physicist for the US Bureau of Mines, in Washington DC. In 1923, he returned to the University of Graz, and was appointed the Ordinary Professor of Experimental Physics in 1925. The University of Innsbruck appointed him Professor, and Director Institute of Radiology, in 1931.
Hess relocated to the United States with his Jewish wife in 1938, in order to escape Nazi persecution. The same year Fordham University appointed him Professor of Physics, and he later became a naturalized United States citizen in 1944. His wife died of cancer in 1955. The same year he married Elizabeth M. Hoenke, the woman who nursed Berta at the end of her life.
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