Robert Döpel | |
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| Born | Georg Robert Döpel (1895-12-03)December 3, 1895 |
| Died | December 2, 1982(1982-12-02) (aged 86) |
| Citizenship |  Germany |
| Alma mater | University of Munich University of Jena University of Leipzig |
| Known for | Soviet program of nuclear weapons Uranium Club |
| Spouse | Klara Mannss (m. 1935–45) |
| Awards |  Patriotic Order of Merit |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nuclear physics |
| Institutions | Technical University Ilmenau NII-9 in Moscow University of Leipzig University of Würzburg University of Göttingen |
| Thesis | Elektromagnetische Analyse von Kanalstrahlen. (1925) |
| Doctoral advisor | Wilhelm Wien |
Georg Robert Döpel (3 December 1895 – 2 December 1982), best known asRobert Döpel, was aGerman nuclear physicist and a professor of physics at theTechnical University of Ilmenau in Germany.
An early participant of the German program, theUranprojekt, in 1939, Döpel was later taken intoSoviet custody and held inRussia afterWorld War II. There, Döpel was one of many German nuclear physicists working in theSoviet program of nuclear weapons in 1945. As opposed to his fellow German scientists, Döpel was held in Russia for a longer time and was not allowed to return to his homeland until 1957, only to teach physics at theTechnical University inIlmenau, Germany.: xix [1]
His later career focused inclimate physics, concerning the topics ofglobal warming before passing in Ilmenau in 1982, aged 86.
Döpel was born inNeustadt, which is a small town inSaale-Orla-Kreis,Thuringia, Germany on 3 December 1895.[2] From 1919—1925, he studied and attained degrees in physics from theUniversity of Leipzig,University of Jena, and theUniversity of Munich where he attended the doctoral program and did his fundamental research on theAnode ray underPhysics Nobel LaureateWilhelm Wien, prior awarding hisPhD in physics in 1924—25.[3][4][circular reference]
After receipt of his doctorate, Döpel becameRobert W. Pohl teaching assistant at theUniversity of Göttingen, initially teaching courses on physics at an undergraduate level. He continued his work on thecanal rays, which were the basis of his doctoral thesis, at the private laboratory of Rudolf Freihern von Hirsch zuPlanegg, just west ofMunich, along with the Physics Nobel LaureateJohannes Stark.[5] In 1929, he accepted a teaching position at theUniversity of Würzburg, and in 1932, became qualified asprivatdozent in physics.[3]
In 1939, Döpel became an extraordinarius professor at the University of Leipzig, where he was a colleague ofWerner Heisenberg. At some point, Döpel succeeded Fritz Kirchner as professor ofradiation heat transfer.[3][6]
On 22 April 1939, after hearing a paper byWilhelm Hanle on the use ofuraniumfission in aUranmaschine (uranium machine, i.e., nuclear reactor),Georg Joos, along with Hanle, notified Wilhelm Dames, at theMinistry of Education, of potential military applications of nuclear energy. Just seven days later, a group, organized by Dames, met at the Ministry of Education to discuss the potential of a sustainednuclear chain reaction. Their Working Community for Nuclear Physics was known informally as the firstUranverein (Uranium Club) and included the physicistsWalther Bothe,Wilhelm Hanle, his friend[7] Robert Döpel,Hans Geiger,Wolfgang Gentner,Gerhard Hoffmann, and Joos. Informal work began at the University of Göttingen by Joos, Hanle, and their colleagueReinhold Mannkopff. Their work was discontinued in August 1939, when the three were called to military training.
The secondUranverein began after theArmy Ordnance Office squeezed out theImperial Research Council of the Ministry of Education and started the formalGerman program on develoing the nuclear weapons. The first meeting was held on 16 September 1939.[8][9][10] A second meeting soon thereafter includedKlaus Clusius,Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker,Werner Heisenberg and Robert Döpel, his counterpart as an experimental physicist at the University of Leipzig. Here, Heisenberg was the director of the Department ofTheoretical Physics until 1942.
In August 1940, Döpel showed the utility of usingheavy water as a moderator in a research nuclear reactor (uranmaschine). together with his wifeKlara– a paralegal professional who worked as technician and married Döpel in 1935 and she worked with him in Leipzig without wages.[11] They conducted experiments with a spherical geometry (hollow spheres) of uranium surrounded by heavy water. Trial L-I was done in August 1940, and L-II was conducted six months later. Results from trialL-IV, in the first half of 1942, indicated that the spherical geometry, with five metric tons of heavy water and 10 metric tons of metallic uranium, could sustain a fission reaction. So, "the Germans were the first physicists in the world, with their Leipzig pile L-IV, to achieve positive neutron production."[12] The results were set forth in an article by Döpel, Döpel's wife, and W. Heisenberg.[13] The article was published at first in theResearch Reports in Nuclear Physics, a classified internal reporting reports of the GermanUranium Club.[14] In 1942, the supervision of theUranverein was transferred from the Army Ordnance Office to theImperial Research Council".[15][16]
In June 1942, Döpel'suranmaschine was destroyed by a low-speed detonation induced by hydrogen formation.[17][18] This was the first in a series of accidents that destroyed nuclear energy assemblies due to wrong hydrogen handling.[19] Already afore, a shift of the main works of Heisenberg towards the Kaiser Wilhelm-Institute for Physics (after World War II theMax Planck Institute for Physics) in Berlin was decided. The Döpels didn't follow him despite his wishes, and they retired thereby from the uranium project. This finished the work on this topic at Leipzig.
In a letter written in December 1943, Döpel recounted that allied air raids had destroyed 75% of Leipzig, including his institute. The Russian air raids during that year had also burned down Döpel's institute apartment and Heisenberg's house in Leipzig. Sixteen months later, on April 6, 1945–just 32 days before thesurrender of Germany– Klara was killed in an air raid, while she was working in the physics building.[11][20]
Near the close ofWorld War II, theSoviet Union sent special search teams into Germany to locate and deport German nuclear scientists or any others who could be of use to theSoviet atomic bomb project. TheRussian Alsos teams were headed byNKVD security operativeAvraami Zavenyagin and staffed with numerous scientists, from their only nuclear laboratory, attired in NKVD officer's uniforms. The main search team, headed by Colonel General Zavenyagin, arrived in Berlin on 3 May, the day after Russia announced the fall of Berlin to their military forces; it included Colonel General V. A. Makhnjov, and nuclear physicistsYulij Borisovich Khariton,Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin, andLev Andreevich Artsimovich. Döpel was sent to the Soviet Union to work on their atomic bomb effort.
At first, he worked at the Nauchno-Issledovatel'skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9), in Moscow. There, he worked withMax Volmer on the production ofheavy water.[21][22][23]
In 1957, the Soviet government allowed Döpel to be returned toEast Germany after he accepted a technical and teaching position at the Technical University of Ilmenau, his birth town. There, he became professor of physics and directed an Institute for Applied Physics of the Technical University of Ilmenau. Döpel conducted research on the experimental physics and conducted investigations on thespectral analysis of the mechanism of electric discharges in gases.[24][25]
Later on, he was engaged in energetics in connection withwaste heat andglobal warming problems.[26][27] With his zero-dimensionalclimate model, he estimated global warming contributions from waste heat for coming centuries which have been confirmed meanwhile by more refined model calculations.[28] He died inIlmenau in 1982. In honour of his 100th birthday in 1995, there were solemn colloquia at the Universities of Ilmenau and of Leipzig.[29]
The following reports were published inKernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the GermanUranverein. The reports 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.[30][31]
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