Arnold Thomas Eucken (3 July 1884 – 16 June 1950) was a German

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 ...

and

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 ...

. He examined the energy states of the Hydrogen atom and contributed to knowledge of the atomic structure. He also contributed to chemical engineering and process control through physical chemistry measurements for applications in industry.

Career

Eucken was born in Jena, son of the philosopher and later

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner

Rudolf Eucken Rudolf Christoph Eucken (; 5 January 184615 September 1926) was a German philosopher. He received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and ...

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

. A maternal great grandfather was the physicist Thomas Seebeck. His brother Walter became an economist. He went to the humanist high school in Jena and studied Physics and Mathematics at the universities of Kiel, Jena and Berlin. In 1905 he began to work in Berlin under

Walther Nernst Walther Hermann Nernst (; 25 June 1864 – 18 November 1941) was a German chemist known for his work in thermodynamics, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, and solid state physics. His formulation of the Nernst heat theorem helped pave the wa ...

on the energy states of hydrogen and received a doctorate in 1906. He examined the heat of rotation of hydrogen molecules using the vacuum calorimeter. He habilitated in 1911 and after the turbulent Turko-Italian war period he joined back in 1915 Eucken at the Technische Hochschule Breslau, and from 1930 at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

as a successor of Gustav Tammann. After "the seizure of power" of the

National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

, Eucken became a member of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

in 1933. A major contribution was a "Textbook of Chemical Physics" first published in 1930.

Contributions

Eucken made important contributions within physical and technical

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. He concentrated on

specific heat In thermodynamics, the specific heat capacity (symbol ) of a substance is the heat capacity of a sample of the substance divided by the mass of the sample, also sometimes referred to as massic heat capacity. Informally, it is the amount of heat t ...

at very low temperatures, the structure of

liquid A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...

s and

electrolytic An electrolyte is a medium containing ions that is electrically conducting through the movement of those ions, but not conducting electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water. Upon dis ...

solutions, the

molecular physics Molecular physics is the study of the physical properties of molecules and molecular dynamics. The field overlaps significantly with physical chemistry, chemical physics, and quantum chemistry. It is often considered as a sub-field of atomic, mo ...

(rotation, oscillation), on

deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being Hydrogen atom, protium, or hydrogen-1). The atomic nucleus, nucleus of a deuterium ato ...

and heavy water, on homogeneous and heterogeneous gas kinetics,

catalysis Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

and chemical technology.

Death

Eucken killed himself in

Seebruck Seeon-Seebruck is a municipality in the district of Traunstein in southern Bavaria in Germany. Municipal districts * ''Seeon'' 6 km north of Lake Chiemsee within the Seeon Lakes. * ''Seebruck'' is a popular local tourist spot in the north en ...

on 16 June 1950.

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concer ...

: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, S. 140.

References

1884 births 1950 deaths Scientists from Jena People from Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 20th-century German chemists 20th-century German physicists University of Göttingen faculty Suicides in Germany 1950 suicides {{Germany-scientist-stub

Career

Contributions

Death

See also

References