Karl Meissner

Karl Wilhelm Meissner (15 December 1891 in Reutlingen, Württemberg – 13 April 1959 on a cruise ship sailing to Europe) was a German-American physicist specializing in hyperfine spectroscopy. He spent the greater part of his career in the United States at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Education

After Meissner’s abitur at the Humanistisches Gymnasium, in 1910, he began the study of physics and mathematics at the University of Tübingen. After three terms, he went to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München as a student of the experimentalist Wilhelm Röntgen and the theoretician Arnold Sommerfeld. After one year at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, he returned to the University of Tübingen to be able to study spectroscopy with Friedrich Paschen. While still a student in 1914, Meissner was able to prove the existence of oxygen lines in the solar spectrum. He was awarded his doctorate in 1915, on a thesis with the title Interferometrische Wellenlängenbestimmung im infraroten Spektralbereich. In 1916, he became an assistant to Edgar Meyer at the University of Zurich, under whom he completed his Habilitation, in 1918, with the Habilitationsschrift title Untersuchungen des Neonspektrums. The following year, he married the Polish physicist Doctor Janka Kohn.

Career In the summer of 1924, Meissner became a First Assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Zurich. Here he studied the spectra of indium, gallium, neon, argon, and caesium, the arc spectrum of lead (spectrum of neutral or non-ionized lead), the Stark effect of neon, and general problems of detecting radiation. With this technique, Meissner could investigate the hyperfine structure of spectra, which are due to the magnetic moment of the atomic nuclei. This is an area of experimental research which would occupy Meissner for many years. Hanna taught from 1944 to 1965 as professor of sociology and social science at Purdue.

Outside of physics, Meissner’s interests also included history, literature, and languages. He spoke German, English, French, and Italian, and was able to also read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

On 9 April 1959, Meissner sailed from New York City for Europe to visit his sister and niece, visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (International Bureau of Weights and Measures), teach in the summer semester at Kiel University, and attend an interferometry conference in London. During the voyage, he died on 13 April. His wife, Hanna, died thirty years later on 8 February 1989, in Lafayette, Indiana.

Selected Literature

Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. Received 23 June 1948. When the article was published, Mundie was at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Received 3 April 1953.