- Emil Wiechert
Emil Johann Wiechert (
26 December 1861 –19 March 1928 ) was a Germangeophysicist .Wiechert was born in
Tilsit ,Province of Prussia , the son of Johann and Emilie Wiechart. After his father died, Emilie moved toKönigsberg so that Emil could study at theUniversity of Königsberg . Due to economic difficulties he took longer than normal to complete his education, but he was awarded aPh.D. in 1889.The following year he became qualified to lecture in physics at a university-level in Germany. He became an assistant to Paul Volkmann at Königsberg University, teaching there, and during the next seven years performed research in physics until 1897, when he received a call to Georg-August-Universität in
Göttingen . He started as an assistant of Woldemar Voigt, in physics, and In 1898 he was named professor of geophysics and Director of the Geophysical Laboratory at Göttingen. He became a full professor at the institution in 1905, and would remain there for the remainder of his career. He would be married to Helene Ziebarth, a lawyer's daughter, in 1908, but the couple did not have children.During his career he made important contributions to the discovery of the
electron , the physics ofcathode ray s, andLiénard-Wiechert Potentials . He was the first geophysicist to present a verifiable model of the Earth's interior as a series of shells. He wrote a number of scientific papers, including a pioneering work on howseismic wave s propagate through the Earth. He also devised an improvedseismograph and created the field of geological prospecting using small, artificially-created earthquakes.Toward the end of his life he became increasingly deaf and would suffer from a number of ailments before finally passing away. He died in Göttingen.
Awards and honors
* Corresponding member of the
Berlin Academy of Science , 1912.
* Wiechert crater on theMoon is named after him.External links
* [http://verplant.org/history-geophysics/Wiechert.htm Some Aspects in Emil Wiechert´s Scientific Work]
* [http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=AJPIAS000069000003000277000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes Emil Wiechert (1861–1928): Esteemed seismologist, forgotten physicist]
* [http://www.geo.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~eifel/Seismo_HTML/seismograph_pic.htm Emil Wiechert with his seismograph]Angenheister, G.H., (1928). Emil Wiechert. Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Geschäftliche Mitteilungen, 53-62.
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