James Franck

Infobox_Scientist
name = James Franck


image_width = 220px
caption = James Franck (1882-1964)
birth_date = birth date|1882|8|26|df=y
birth_place = Hamburg, German Empire
nationality = Germany
death_date = death date and age|1964|5|21|1882|8|26
death_place = Göttingen, West Germany
field = Physics
work_institution = University of Berlin
University of Göttingen
Johns Hopkins University
University of Chicago
alma_mater = University of Heidelberg
University of Berlin
doctoral_advisor = Emil Gabriel Warburg
doctoral_students = Wilhelm Hanle
Arthur R. von Hippel
known_for = Franck-Condon principle
Franck-Hertz experiment
prizes = Nobel Prize for Physics (1925)
religion = Jewish
footnotes =

James Franck (August 26, 1882 – May 21, 1964) was a German-born physicist and Nobel laureate from Hamburg.

Education and career

Franck completed his PhD in 1906 and received his "venia legendi" for physics in 1911, both at the University of Berlin, where he lectured and taught until 1918, having reached the position of extraordinarius professor. After World War I, in which he served and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class, Franck became the Head of the Physics Division of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft for Physical Chemistry. In 1920, Franck became ordinarius professor of experimental physics and Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Göttingen. While at the university, he worked on quantum physics with Max Born, who was Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics.

In 1925, Franck received the Nobel Prize in Physics, mostly for his work in 1912-1914 which included the Franck-Hertz experiment, an important confirmation of the Bohr model of the atom.

In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, he left his post in Germany and continued his research in the United States, first at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and then, after a year in Denmark, in Chicago. This is where he became involved in the Manhattan Project during World War II; he was Director of the Chemistry Division of the Metallurgical Laboratory [ The Metallurgical Laboratory – known as the Met Lab – was one of four main sites working on the Manhattan Project. The other three were Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Hanford Site.] at the University of Chicago. He was also the chairman of the Committee on Political and Social Problems regarding the atomic bomb; the committee consisted of himself and other scientists at the Met Lab, including Donald J. Hughes, J. J. Nickson, Eugene Rabinowitch, Glenn T. Seaborg, J. C. Stearns and Leo Szilard. The committee is most known for the compilation of the Franck Report, finished on June 11, 1945, which was a summary of the problems regarding the military application of the Atomic Bomb.

When Nazi Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from stealing them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The Nobel Society then recast the Nobel Prizes using the original gold.

In 1946 Franck married Hertha Sponer, his former assistant in Göttingen. He died suddenly in 1964 while visiting Göttingen. [http://www.phy.duke.edu/about/HerthaSponer/]

Honours and awards

* 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics The award was shared with Gustav Ludwig Hertz, and it was for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of electrons on atoms.
* 1951 Max Planck Medaille der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft
* 1953 Honorary citizen of Göttingen
* 1955 Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences - For his work on photosynthesis.
* 1964 Elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London, for his contribution to the understanding of exchanges of energy in electron collisions, to the interpretation of molecular spectra, and to problems of photosynthesis.

ee also

*Franck-Condon principle
*Franck-Hertz experiment

References

*cite journal | last=Kuhn | first=H.G. | coauthors= | title=James Franck, 1882-1964 | journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume=11 | issue= | pages=53–74 | year=1965 | url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0080-4606%28196511%2911%3C53%3AJF1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V | accessdate=2008-03-03| doi=10.1098/rsbm.1965.0004
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Shampo
first=M A
authorlink=
coauthors=Kyle R A
year=1984
month=Sep
title=James Franck and Gustav Hertz
journal=JAMA
volume=252
issue=11
pages=1426
publisher = | location =
pmid = 6381774
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
doi=10.1001/jama.252.11.1426
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Rosenberg
first=Jerome L
authorlink=
year=2004
month=
title=The contributions of james franck to photosynthesis research: a tribute
journal=Photosyn. Res.
volume=80
issue=1-3
pages=71–6
publisher = | location =
pmid = 16328811
doi = 10.1023/B:PRES.0000030453.66865.f6
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =

External links

*http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1925/franck-bio.html biography, on the Nobel website
* [http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Franck,+James Annotated bibliography for James Franck from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]
* [http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/guides/ahqp/bios.htm James Franck Biography] – American Philosophical Society (Bio appears after Sommerfeld's)

Persondata
NAME= Franck, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=German Physicist
DATE OF BIRTH= August 26, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH= Hamburg, Germany
DATE OF DEATH= May 21, 1964
PLACE OF DEATH= Göttingen, Germany