- Kurt Mendelssohn
Infobox Scientist
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name = Kurt Mendelssohn
image_size = 300px
caption = Kurt Alfred Georg Mendelssohn (1906-1980)
birth_date =7 January 1906
birth_place =Berlin ,Germany
death_date =18 September 1980
death_place =Oxford ,UK
residence =United Kingdom
citizenship = British
nationality =
ethnicity = German-Jewish
fields =Physicist
workplaces =University of Oxford
alma_mater = University of Berlin
doctoral_advisor =Franz Eugen Simon
academic_advisors =Max Planck Walther Nernst Erwin Schrödinger Albert Einstein
doctoral_students =Harold Max Rosenberg J. G. Daunt B. S. Chandrasekhar
notable_students =
known_for =
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author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =David Stanley Evans
awards =Hughes Medal (1967)
religion =
footnotes =Kurt Alfred Georg Mendelssohn FRS (
7 January 1906 -18 September 1980 ) was a German-born British medical physicist, elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society 1951.He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Berlin, having studied under
Max Planck ,Walther Nernst ,Erwin Schrödinger , andAlbert Einstein . Leaving Germany at the advent of the Nazi regime in 1933, he went to England. He worked at theUniversity of Oxford from 1933. He was Reader in Physics there, 1955-1973, Emeritus Reader, 1973; Emeritus Professorial Fellow ofWolfson College, Oxford , 1973 (Professorial Fellow, 1971-1973).His scientific work included low temperature physics, transuranic elements, and medical physics.
He was awarded the
Royal Society 's Hughes Medal.In 1974, he published "The Riddle of the Pyramids", in which he sought to explain the whys and wherefores of the earliest
Egyptian pyramids . His principal thesis was that the pyramid at Meidum had collapsed during construction, a conclusion he arrived at utilizing his knowledge of physics. Working from that conclusion, he further elaborated a theory that pyramid construction in Egypt took on a life of its own during the Third and Fourth Dynasties, more or less independently of the reigns of pharaohs. His theory has not been taken up by the Egyptological community, but the book remains a stimulating and detailed study of theEgyptian pyramids .Books by Mendelssohn
* "The Riddle of the Pyramids". Thames & Hudson, 1974; Sphere Cardinal Edition, 1976.
* "The Quest for Absolute Zero".
* "In China Now".
* "The World of Walther Nernst".
* "Science and Western Domination", Thames & Hudson, 1976.References
* D. Schoenberg, "Kurt Alfred Georg Mendelssohn," "Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society," Vol. 29, pp. 361-398, 1983.
External links
* [http://www.genealogy.ams.org/id.php?id=76489 Mendelssohn's math genealogy]
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