Scientists from Frankfurt

Hans_Albrecht_Bethe

Hans Albrecht Bethe (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈbeːtə] ; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.During World War II, he was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory that developed the first atomic bombs. There he played a key role in calculating the critical mass of the weapons and developing the theory behind the implosion method used in both the Trinity test and the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.
After the war, Bethe also played an important role in the development of the hydrogen bomb, although he had originally joined the project with the hope of proving it could not be made. Bethe later campaigned with Albert Einstein and the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists against nuclear testing and the nuclear arms race. He helped persuade the Kennedy and Nixon administrations to sign, respectively, the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (SALT I).
His scientific research never ceased and he was publishing papers well into his nineties, making him one of the few scientists to have published at least one major paper in his field during every decade of his career, which in Bethe's case spanned nearly seventy years. Freeman Dyson, once his doctoral student, called him the "supreme problem-solver of the 20th century".

Max_Laue

Max Theodor Felix von Laue (German: [maks fɔn ˈlaʊ̯ə] ; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.In addition to his scientific endeavors with contributions in optics, crystallography, quantum theory, superconductivity, and the theory of relativity, Laue had a number of administrative positions which advanced and guided German scientific research and development during four decades. A strong objector to Nazism, he was instrumental in re-establishing and organizing German science after World War II.

Wilhelm_Lenz

Wilhelm Lenz (February 8, 1888 in Frankfurt am Main – April 30, 1957 in Hamburg) was a German physicist, most notable for his invention of the Ising model and for his application of the Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector to the old quantum mechanical treatment of hydrogen-like atoms.

Caesar_Rudolf_Boettger

Caesar Rudolf Boettger (20 May 1888 – 8 September 1976) was a German zoologist born in Frankfurt am Main. He specialized in malacology, particularly studying the land snails and slugs.
In 1912 he obtained his PhD from the University of Bonn, and in 1914 embarked on a scientific expedition to Africa and the Orient. During World War I, he was stationed in France and Turkey. In 1932 he became a private lecturer at the University of Berlin, where in 1938 he was appointed professor of zoology. In 1947 he became a professor of zoology at Braunschweig University of Technology, where he established a museum of natural history.
After retirement in 1956, he undertook five research trips to North America (including Mexico and Hawaii). In 1965 he was visiting curator at the University of Michigan and in 1967/68 took part in a research project of the Naval Medical Field Research Laboratory in North Carolina. Boettger has over a dozen species named after him, as well as a gastropod genus:
Boettgerilla Simroth, 1910.Caesar Boettger is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of lizard, Gallotia caesaris.
He was a nephew of German herpetologist Oskar Boettger.

Hugo_Merton

Hugo Merton (18 November 1879 in Frankfurt am Main – 23 March 1940 in Edinburgh) was a German zoologist.
He studied sciences at the University of Heidelberg. From October 1907 to August 1908, with herpetologist Jean Roux, he conducted scientific investigations in the Aru and Kei Islands. In 1913 he obtained his habilitation at Heidelberg with a dissertation on the flatworm genus Temnocephala. Because of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws imposed by the Nazis, he was forced to relinquish his position as deputy director at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt as well as his professorship at the University of Heidelberg.In 1937, by way of an invitation from Professor F. A. E. Crew, he went to the University of Edinburgh, where he spent time working in the institute of animal genetics. Upon this return to Germany in 1938, he was arrested and imprisoned in the concentration camp at Dachau. During the following year, he was deported to Scotland, where he resumed his work at the university. Due to deteriorated health, he died soon afterwards in March 1940.Organisms with the specific epithet of mertoni are named in his honor, an example being the sea snake species Parahydrophis mertoni. In 1911, Max Carl Wilhelm Weber named the fish species Pseudomugil gertrudae after Merton's wife, Gertrude.

Paul_Epstein

Paul Epstein (July 24, 1871 – August 11, 1939) was a German mathematician. He was known for his contributions to number theory, in particular the Epstein zeta function.
Epstein was born and brought up in Frankfurt, where his father was a professor. He received his PhD in 1895 from the University of Strasbourg. From 1895 to 1918 he was a Privatdozent at the University in Strasbourg, which at that time was part of the German Empire. At the end of World War I the city of Strasbourg reverted to France, and Epstein, being German, had to return to Frankfurt.
Epstein was appointed to a non-tenured post at the university and he lectured in Frankfurt from 1919. Later he was appointed professor at Frankfurt. However, after the Nazis came to power in Germany he lost his university position. Because of his age (68) he was unable to find a new position abroad, and finally committed suicide by barbital overdose at Dornbusch, fearing Gestapo torture because he was a Jew.

Hans_Schlossberger

Hans Otto Friedrich Schlossberger (born 22 September 1887 in Alpirsbach, died 27 January 1960 in Stuttgart) was a German physician, who was known for his research in immunology, medical microbiology, epidemiology and antimicrobial chemotherapy, especially on syphilis, typhus, gas gangrene, diphtheria, erysipeloid of Rosenbach, tuberculosis, malaria and leptospirosis. He was one of the leading immunologists and bacteriologists of Germany during his lifetime, and was a student and collaborator of the Nobel laureates Paul Ehrlich and Emil von Behring, two of the principal founders of the field of immunology.
From 1946 to 1955, he was Professor of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control and Director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Infection Control at the Goethe University Frankfurt, and also served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine 1952–1953. He edited the journal Medical Microbiology and Immunology and the influential book Experimental Bacteriology.

Karl_Schaum

Ferdinand Karl Franz Schaum (14 July 1870, Frankfurt am Main – 30 January 1947, Gießen) was a German chemist who specialized in the field of photochemistry.
He studied mathematics and sciences at the Universities of Basel, Berlin, Leipzig and Marburg, earning his doctorate at the latter institution in 1893. Afterwards, he served as an assistant to Theodor Zincke at Marburg and to Wilhelm Ostwald in Leipzig. In 1897 he obtained his habilitation at Marburg with a thesis on types of isometry.In 1904 he became an associate professor of physical chemistry at the University of Marburg, where he was an important influence towards the career of chemist Max Volmer. In 1908 he relocated to the University of Leipzig as an associate professor of photochemistry and scientific photography. From 1914 to 1935 he worked as a full professor of physical chemistry at the University of Giessen.Schaum was a member of the Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der gesamten Naturwissenschaften Marburg.