Stern completed his studies at theUniversity of Breslau in 1912 with a doctoral dissertation in physical chemistry[3] under supervision ofOtto Sackur on the kinetic theory of osmotic pressure in concentrated solutions.[4] He then followedAlbert Einstein toCharles University in Prague and in 1913 toETH Zurich. Stern served in World War I doing meteorological work on the Russian front while still continuing his studies, and in 1915 received hisHabilitation at theUniversity of Frankfurt. In 1921, he became a professor at theUniversity of Rostock, which he left in 1923 to become director of the newly foundedInstitut für Physikalische Chemie at theUniversity of Hamburg.
He was awarded the 1943Nobel Prize in Physics, the first to be awarded since 1939. It was awarded to Stern alone, "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton" (not for the Stern–Gerlach experiment). The 1943 prize was actually awarded in 1944.[10]
After Stern retired from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1945, he moved toBerkeley, California. He was a regular visitor to the physics colloquium atUC Berkeley. He died of aheart attack on 17 August 1969 in Berkeley.[4]
^Otto Stern (2018). Schmidt-Böcking, Horst; Templeton, Alan; Trageser, Wolfgang (eds.).Otto Sterns gesammelte Briefe – Band 1: Hochschullaufbahn und die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (in German). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.ISBN978-3-662-55735-8.OCLC1047864732.
Horst Schmidt-Böcking and Karin Reich:Otto Stern. Physiker Querdenker, Nobelpreisträger. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011,ISBN978-3-942921-23-7.
