Philipp Lenard

Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard, in Hungarian Fülöp Lénárd (born in Bratislava on June 7, 1862 – died May 20, 1947 in Messelhausen) was a physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his research on cathode rays and the discovery of many of their properties.

Biography

Lenard studied under the illustrious Bunsen and Helmholtz, and obtained his doctoral degree in 1886 at the University of Heidelberg. After posts at Aachen, Bonn, Aix-la-Chappell, Breslau, Heidelberg (1896-1898), and Kiel (1898-1907), he returned finally to the University of Heidelberg in 1907 as the head of the Philipp Lenard Institute.

Related Topics:
Bunsen - Helmholtz - University of Heidelberg

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Lenard is best remembered as an "experimentalist of genius" whose major contributions were in the study of cathode rays. Prior to his work, cathode rays were produced in primitive tubes which are partially evacuated glass tubes that have metallic electrodes in them, across which a high voltage can be placed.

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Sometime in the 1930's, he joined the National Socialist Party, which made him "Chief of Aryan or German Physics." He, along with Johannes Stark, became something of a fringe group. He was expelled from his post at the University of Heidelberg in the Allied denazification program in 1945. He died two years later.

Related Topics:
University of Heidelberg - Denazification

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