Alois Handl (22 July 1837,

Feldkirch, Vorarlberg Feldkirch () is a medieval town in the western Austrian state of Vorarlberg, bordering on Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is the administrative centre of the Feldkirch district. After Dornbirn, it is the second most populous town in Vorarlber ...

– 1915,

Czernowitz Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this city, which is situated on the up ...

) was an Austrian

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. In 1859 he obtained his doctorate in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, later becoming a professor at the

University of Lemberg The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

. Afterwards he taught classes at the military academy in

Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; ; Central Bavarian: ''Weana Neistod'') is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administration of Wiener Neustadt-Land Distr ...

. In 1876 he established the chair of

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and ...

at the

University of Czernowitz Chernivtsi National University (full name Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, uk, Чернівецький національний університет імені Юрія Федьковича) is a public university in the City o ...

, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1906. Following his retirement, Handl was succeeded at Czernowitz by

Josef Geitler von Armingen Josef Karl Franz Otto Geitler, Ritter von Armingen (14 September 1870 – 20 June 1923) was an Austrian physicist born in Smíchov, today a district in Prague. He is remembered for his investigations of electromagnetic waves. He studied in Prague ...

(1870-1923). As a physicist he conducted studies in the fields of

crystallography Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...

, barometry, hydrodensitometry, and also did research involving

light absorption In physics, absorption of electromagnetic radiation is how matter (typically electrons bound in atoms) takes up a photon's energy — and so transforms radiant energy, electromagnetic energy into internal energy of the absorber (for example, th ...

, the specific resistance of liquids, and

color vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of ...

in animals, to name a few. With

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

Richard Pribram Richard Pribram (21 April 1847 – 7 January 1928) was an Austrian chemist. He was the brother of internist Alfred Pribram (1841–1912). Biography Pribram was born on 21 April 1847 in Prague. He studied chemistry in Prague and Munich (under Ju ...

(1847-1928), he conducted investigations on the

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

of different

organic compounds In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The s ...

, with results of their work being published in the ''Sitzungsberichte'' of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and in

Wilhelm Ostwald Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (; 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist and German philosophy, philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, ...

’s ''

Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie ''Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie'' (English: ''Journal of Physical Chemistry'') is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering physical chemistry that is published by Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. Its English subtitle is "Internat ...

''. Handl's textbook of physics for middle-school students, "''Lehrbuch der Physik für die oberen Classen der Mittelschulen''", was published over several editions.Verordnungsblatt für den Dienstbereich des K. K. Ministeriums für Kultus
by Austria. Ministerium für Cultus und Unterricht

References

Scientists and mathematicians in Czernowitz University by Robert Rosner
(biographical information) {{DEFAULTSORT:Handl, Alois Academic staff of the University of Lviv Academic staff of Chernivtsi University People from Feldkirch, Vorarlberg 1915 deaths 1837 births Scientists from the Austrian Empire Physicists from Austria-Hungary 19th-century Austrian physicists University of Vienna alumni 20th-century Austrian physicists