Otto Laporte

Otto Laporte (July 23, 1902 – March 28, 1971) was a German-born American physicist and professor at the University of Michigan, who made contributions to quantum mechanics, electromagnetic wave propagation theory, spectroscopy, and fluid dynamics. His name is lent to the Laporte rule in spectroscopy and to the Otto Laporte Award of the American Physical Society.

Education

Laporte’s ancestors came from French Huguenot families who fled to Switzerland in the 17th century. His father was an officer in the military. Before World War I, they were stationed in the fortified cities of Mainz (where Laporte was born), Cologne, and Metz, in which he received his early education. After the war started, they returned to Mainz.

In the spring of 1920, the family moved to Frankfurt, staying just one year, where Laporte attended the University of Frankfurt am Main. There, he was influenced by the mathematicians Arthur Schoenflies, Ludwig Bieberbach, and Ernst Hellinger, and the physicists Max Born, and Alfred Landé. In the summer of 1921, the Laporte family moved to Munich, where Laporte became a student of Arnold Sommerfeld at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Max Born had sent an enthusiastic recommendation of Laporte to Sommerfeld. At that time, Wolfgang Pauli was an assistant to Sommerfeld and Sommerfeld’s students included Werner Heisenberg, Gregor Wentzel, Karl Herzfeld, and Paul Peter Ewald – all of whom would go on to become famous physicists in their own right. Laporte’s first independent research was on the diffraction of electromagnetic waves around a spherical body and this was the basis for his doctoral thesis under Sommerfeld. His doctorate was granted in 1924. While at LMU, he also analyzed various spectra and made a contribution to understanding atomic structure. Through these research efforts, Laporte and William Frederick Meggers discovered in 1925 what is known in spectroscopy as the Laporte rule,

Honors 1971 – First person posthumously elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1972 – American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics, established the Otto Laporte Memorial Lectureship (which in 1985 was changed into the Otto Laporte Award)

Books Otto Laporte Theorie der Multiplettspektren Offprint from Walter Grotrian et al., Grundlagen der Astrophysik Vol. 3, Part 2 (Springer, 1930) Otto Laporte and R. C. F. Bartels An Investigation of the Exact Solution of the Linearized Equations for the Flow Past Conical Bodies (Michigan University Ann Arbor Office of Research Administration, 1948) Arnold Sommerfeld, translated from the first German edition by Otto Laporte and Peter A. Moldauer Optics - Lectures on Theoretical Physics Volume IV (Academic Press, 1964) [German title and publisher: Arnold Sommerfeld Optik - Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik Band 4 (Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1950)]

Selected literature

Otto Laporte Zur Theorie der Ausbreitung elektromagnetischer Wellen auf der Erdkugel, Annalen der Physik, 375 (8) 595-616 (1923). J. E. Mack, Otto Laporte, and R. J. Lang The Application of the X-Ray Laws to Optical Spectra of Higher Rank, and the Classification of Ga IV and Ge V, Phys. Rev. 31 (5) 748 - 772 (1928). Mack and Laporte are cited as being at the University of Michigan. Lang is cited as being at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Article received February 1928. O. Laporte and D. R. Inglis Resonance Separations in Configurations of type p5s and d9s, Phys. Rev. 35 (11) 1337 - 1341 (1930). The authors are cited as being at the department of physics, University of Michigan. Article received April 21, 1930. Otto Laporte and George E. Uhlenbeck Application of Spinor Analysis to the Maxwell and Dirac Equations, Phys. Rev. 37 (11) 1380 - 1397 (1931). The author is cited as being at the department of physics, University of Michigan. Article received February 24, 1931. Otto Laporte, George R. Miller, and Ralph A. Sawyer The First Spark Spectrum of Rubidium (Rb II), Phys. Rev. 38 (5) 843 - 853 (1931). The authors are cited as being at the University of Michigan. Article received July 23, 1931. O. Laporte, G. R. Miller, and R. A. Sawyer The First Spark Spectrum of Caesium (Cs II) Phys. Rev. 39 (3) 458 - 466 (1932). The authors are cited as being at the University of Michigan. Article received December 17, 1931. Otto Laporte Absorption Coefficients for Thermal Neutrons. Remarks on the Preceding Paper of C. T. Zahn, Phys. Rev. 52 (2) 72 - 74 (1937). The author is cited as being at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Article received April 7, 1937. W. R. Johnson and Otto Laporte Interaction of Cylindrical Sound Waves with a Stationary Shock Wave, Physics of Fluids 1 (2) 82-94 (1958). The author is cites as being at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Article received February 12, 1958. Tien Sun Chang and Otto Laporte Reflection of Strong Blast Waves, Physics of Fluids 7 (8) 1225-1232 (1964). Chang is cited as being at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia. Laporte is cited as being at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. O. Laporte and R. G. Fowler Resistance of a Plasma Slab between Juxtaposed Disk Electrodes, Phys. Rev. 148 (1) 170 - 175 (1966). Laporte is cited as being at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Fowler is cited as being at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. Article received March 9, 1966. Otto Laporte On Kepler Ellipses Starting from a Point in Space, American Journal of Physics 38 (7) 837-840 (1970). The author is cited as being at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. Article received November 18, 1969.