- Heinrich Greinacher
Heinrich Greinacher (
May 31 ,1880 inSt. Gallen –April 17 ,1974 inBern ) was a Swissphysicist . He is regarded as an original experimenter and is the developer of themagnetron and theGreinacher multiplier .Greinacher was the only child of master shoemaker Heinrich Greinacher and his wife Pauline, born Münzenmayer. He went to school in St. Gallen and studied
physics at bothZurich , Geneva and Berlin. He also trained as apianist at the Geneva Conservatory of Music. Originally a German citizen, he was naturalized in 1894 as aSt. Gallen citizen. In Berlin, Greinacher attended the lectures ofMax Planck and received a doctorate in 1904 underEmil Warburg . He did hishabilitation in 1907 at theUniversity of Zurich , and in 1912, he moved to Zurich on a permanent basis. From 1924 to 1952, he was full professor of Experimental Physics at theUniversity of Bern and the director of the Physical Institute (formerly Physics "Cabinett").In 1912, Greinacher developed the magnetron and gave a fundamental mathematical description of this tube. In 1914, he invented the
Greinacher multiplier (a rectifier circuit for voltage doubling). In 1920, he generalized this idea to a cascadedvoltage multiplier , and developed detection methods for charged particles (proportional counter , spark counter). In the 1930s, using an independently invented Greinacher-style multiplier to research atomic nuclei, British researchers discoveredartificial radioactivity .Greinacher was married twice: in 1910 to the German Marie Mahlmann, with whom he had two children, and then again in 1933 to Frieda Urben from
Inkwil .Foundation
A foundation was established in Bern in 1988 with the name of
Heinrich-Greinacher-Stiftung from the estate of the couple Frieda and Heinrich Greinacher. Interest income of the Foundation's capital is used to fund theHeinrich Greinacher Prize and for the promotion of young researchers and scientists.Publications
*"Negotiations of the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences". Issue 154 (1974), p. 239-251 (with a catalog)
* Hans Erich Hollmann:"physics and technology of the ultra-waves. Volume 1 Production ultrakurzwelliger oscillations".External links
* [http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=480#3055 A video demonstration of a Greinacher tube]
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