Fritz Houtermans | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 22 January 1903  |
| Died | 1 March 1966 (aged 63) |
| Occupation |
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| Academic career | |
| Fields | Physics,nuclear physics,geochemistry,astrochemistry |
| Institutions |
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| Doctoral advisor | James Franck |
Friedrich Georg "Fritz"Houtermans (January 22, 1903 – March 1, 1966) was aDutch-Austrian-Germanatomic andnuclearphysicist andCommunist born in Zoppot (nowSopot) near Danzig (nowGdańsk),West Prussia to aDutch father, who was a wealthy banker. He was brought up inVienna, where he was educated, and moved toGöttingen when he was 18 to study. It was in Göttingen where he obtained his Ph.D. underJames Franck.[1]
Houtermans began his studies at theUniversity of Göttingen in 1921, and he received his doctorate[2] underJames Franck in 1927, the same yearRobert Oppenheimer received his doctorate underMax Born. He completed hisHabilitation underGustav Hertz atTechnische Universität Berlin, in 1932. Hertz and Franck were Nobel laureates; they shared the 1925Nobel Prize in Physics.[3][4][5]
While at Göttingen, Houtermans metEnrico Fermi,George Gamow,Werner Heisenberg,Wolfgang Pauli, andVictor Frederick Weisskopf. Houtermans and Gamow did pioneering work onquantum tunneling in 1928. Houtermans, in 1929, withRobert d'Escourt Atkinson, made the first calculation of stellar thermonuclear reactions.[6][7] Their pioneering calculations were the impetus forCarl Friedrich von Weizsäcker andHans Bethe, in 1939, to put forth the correct theory of stellar thermonuclear energy generation.[3][4]
Houtermans used his discovery to wooCharlotte Riefenstahl:
That evening, after we had finished our paper, I went for a walk with a pretty girl. As soon as it grew dark the stars came out, one after another, in all their splendour. "Don't they shine beautifully?" cried my companion. But I simply stuck out my chest and said proudly: "I've known since yesterday why it is that they shine."[8]
Riefenstahl, who received her doctorate in physics at the University of Göttingen in 1927, the same year as Houtermans and Robert Oppenheimer, was courted by both men.[9][a] In 1930, she left her teaching position atVassar College and went back to Germany. During a physics conference at theBlack Sea resort ofBatumi, Riefenstahl and Houtermans were married in August 1930, inTbilisi, withWolfgang Pauli andRudolf Peierls as witnesses to the ceremony.[10][11][12][13][b]
From 1932 to 1933, Houtermans taught at Technische Universität Berlin and was an assistant to Hertz. While there, he metPatrick Blackett,Max von Laue, andLeó Szilárd.
Houtermans was aCommunist;[16] he had been a member of the German Communist Party since the 1920s.[17] After the election ofAdolf Hitler in 1933, Charlotte Houtermans insisted that they leave Germany. They went toGreat Britain, nearCambridge, where he worked for the EMI (Electrical and Musical Instruments, Ltd.) Television Laboratory.[18] In 1935 Houtermans emigrated to theSoviet Union, as the result of a proposal byAlexander Weissberg, who had emigrated to there in 1931.[19] Houtermans took an appointment at the Kharkov Physico-Technical Institute and worked there for two years with the Russian physicist Valentin P. Fomin. In theGreat Purge, Houtermans was arrested by theNKVD in December 1937. He was tortured and confessed to being aTrotskyist plotter and German spy, out of fear from threats against Charlotte. However, Charlotte had already escaped from the Soviet Union toDenmark, after which she went to England and finally the USA.[20] After theHitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, Houtermans was turned over to theGestapo in May 1940 and imprisoned inBerlin. Through efforts ofMax von Laue, Houtermans was released in August 1940, whereupon he became employedForschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik,[21] a private laboratory ofManfred Baron von Ardenne, in Lichterfelde, a suburb of Berlin. In 1944, Houtermans took a position as a nuclear physicist at thePhysikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt.[3][4][18][22]
While imprisoned in theSoviet Union, a cellmate of Houtermans was theKiev University historianKonstantin Shteppa. They would later write a book together,Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confession,[23] under the pseudonyms of Beck and Godin to protect their many friends and colleagues back in the USSR.[24]
At the Forschunsinstitut Manfred von Ardenne, Houtermans showed thattransuranic isotopes, such asneptunium andplutonium, could be used as fissionable fuels in substitution foruranium. In an act of espionage against his country, Houtermans sent a telegram fromSwitzerland toEugene Wigner at theMet Lab warning the USA'sManhattan Project of German work on fission: "Hurry up. We are on the track."[25]
During Houtermans's employment at thePhysikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR), he got himself into serious trouble as a result of his habit of being a chain-smoker and suffering great distress if he did not have a supply of tobacco. On official PTR stationery, he wrote to aDresden cigarette manufacturer to obtain a kilogram of Macedonian tobacco, claiming that he could extractheavy water from the tobacco, and thus that it was "kriegswichtig", i.e., important for the war effort. When he had smoked the tobacco, he again wrote for more, however, the letter fell into the hands of an official at the PTR, who had him fired.Werner Heisenberg andCarl Weizsäcker came to the rescue of Houtermans and arranged an interview for him withWalter Gerlach, the plenipotentiary (Bevollmächtiger) for German nuclear research under theReich Research Council.[26][27][28] As a result, Houtermans moved to Göttingen in 1945, where Hans Kopferman andRichard Becker got him positions at the Institut für Theoretische Physik and II. Physikalisches Institut der Universität Göttingen.[29][30]
From 1952, Houtermans took a position as ordinarius professor of physics at theUniversity of Bern.[3][18] During his tenure there, he foundedBerner Schule, whose thrust was the application ofradioactivity toastrophysics,cosmochemistry, andgeosciences.[12]
Houtermans was married four times.[31] Charlotte was his first and third wife in four marriages. They had two children, a daughter Giovanna (born in Berlin, 1932) and a son Jan (born in Kharkov, 1935), and they were divorced the first time in 1943, due to a new law in Germany and enforced wartime separation.[13][32] In February 1944, Houtermans married Ilse Bartz, a chemical engineer; they worked together during the war and published a paper.[33] Houtermans and Ilse had three children, Pieter, Elsa, and Cornelia.[34] In August 1953, again with Pauli standing as a witness, Charlotte and Houtermans were again married, but they divorced again in only a few months. In 1955, Houtermans married Lore Müller, sister of his stepbrother, Hans. She brought her four-year-old daughter to the marriage, and she and Houtermans had a son, Hendrik, born in 1956.[9][35]
Houtermans died oflung cancer on 1 March 1966.[36]
Houtermans authored a report which was published inKernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the GermanUranverein. Reports in this publication were classified Top Secret, they had very limited distribution, and the authors were not allowed to keep copies. The reports were confiscated under the AlliedOperation Alsos and sent to theUnited States Atomic Energy Commission for evaluation. In 1971, the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. The reports are available at theKarlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and theAmerican Institute of Physics.[37][38]
For a partial list of works by Houtermans, see theWolfram biography.
