Kurd von Mosengeil

Kurd Friedrich Rudolf von Mosengeil, also Curd Friedrich Rudolf von Mosengeil (* 7 March 1884 in Bonn; † 5 September 1906 at Wildgall in Rieserfernergruppe), was a German physicist.

Kurd von Mosengeil was a student of Max Planck. In 1905 the latter defended as the first one the theory of special relativity of Albert Einstein. In the subsequent years Planck published several works, in which he explained further conclusions of Einstein's theory. He convinced his assistant Max von Laue and his student Kurd of Mosengeil, as being the first physicists to habilitate as well as to graduate in relativity related subjects.

Through a tragic accident-death of Mosengeil during a mountain-tour in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in September 1906 he couldn't continue his researches. Planck and Wilhelm Wien shortened the dissertation Mosengeil's and published it in the Annalen der Physik in 1907. The paper ("Theorie der stationären Strahlung in einem gleichförmig bewegten Hohlraum", en:"Theory of stationary radiation in a uniformly moving cavity") contains some relations of thermodynamics and the mass-energy equivalence and was partly related to the work of Friedrich Hasenöhrl (1904). He vouched personally for its content and believed in the permanent value of Mosengeil's examinations. In fact, the dissertation was groundbreaking for further researches which were used by Planck (1907) and Einstein (1908).

Literature

*Citation | author=Hasenöhrl, F. | year=1904 | title=Zur Theorie der Strahlung in bewegten Körpern |journal=Annalen der Physik | volume=15 | pages =344–370| url=http://www.weltderphysik.de/intern/upload/annalen_der_physik/1904/Band_320_344.pdf | doi=10.1002/andp.19043201206
*Citation | author=Mosengeil, K. | year=1907 | title=Theorie der stationären Strahlung in einem gleichförmig bewegten Hohlraum |journal=Annalen der Physik | volume=22 | pages =867–906 | doi=10.1002/andp.19073270504
*Citation | author=Planck, M. | year=1907/1908 | title= Zur Dynamik bewegter Systeme |journal=Annalen der Physik | volume=26 | pages =1–34|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15332t/f9.table