Arthur Korn (20 May 1870 – 21 December/22 December 1945) was a German

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 ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

. He was involved in the development of the

fax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...

machine, specifically the transmission of

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s or

telephotography Wirephoto, telephotography or radiophoto is the sending of pictures by telegraph, telephone or radio. Édouard Belin's Bélinographe of 1913, which scanned using a photocell and transmitted over ordinary phone lines, formed the basis for the Wir ...

, known as the Bildtelegraph, related to early attempts at developing a practical

mechanical television Mechanical television or mechanical scan television is a television system that relies on a mechanical scanning device, such as a rotating disk with holes in it or a rotating mirror drum, to scan the scene and generate the video signal, and a si ...

system.

Life

Born in Breslau, Korn was the son of a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

couple, Moritz and Malwine Schottlaender. He attended gymnasia in Breslau and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He then studied physics and mathematics in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

at the age of 15, from where he graduated in 1890. Afterwards, he studied in Berlin,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

. In 1895, he became a lecturer in law at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

, and was appointed professor in 1903. In 1914, he accepted the chair of physics at the

Berlin Institute of Technology The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

. Dr. Korn, being of Jewish descent, was dismissed from his post in 1935 with the rise of the

Nazi Party 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 1939 he left Germany with his family and moved to the United States, entering via Mexico. There, he took the chair in physics and mathematics at

Stevens Institute of Technology Stevens Institute of Technology is a private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Founded in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solely dedicated to mechanical ...

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...

. He died in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. He pioneered the use of light sensitive

selenium Selenium is a chemical element with the symbol Se and atomic number 34. It is a nonmetal (more rarely considered a metalloid) with properties that are intermediate between the elements above and below in the periodic table, sulfur and tellurium, ...

cells which supplanted the function of the stylus,"17.10.1906: First Photoelectric Fax Transmission "
''Deutsche Welle'', Accessed 20.11.09 and used a

Nernst lamp The Nernst lamp was an early form of incandescent lamp. Construction Nernst lamps did not use a glowing tungsten filament. Instead, they used a ceramic rod that was heated to incandescence. Because the rod (unlike tungsten wire) would not ...

as a light source. On 17 October 1906, he transmitted a photograph of Crown Prince William over a distance of 1800 km. At a 1913 conference 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 ...

, Korn demonstrated the first successful visual telegraphic transmission of a cinematic recording. Under heavy media attention in 1923, he successfully transmitted an image of Pope

Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from ...

across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, from

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Bar Harbor, Maine Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire i ...

, the picture being hailed as a "miracle of modern science". From 1928 onwards, the German police used Korn's system to send photographs and fingerprints, though the use of the "phototelegraph" in apprehending a thief from a

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

bank in London was recorded in 1907, as well as the use of the technology by the media, with the French paper ''

l'Illustration ''L'Illustration'' was a weekly French language, French newspaper published in Paris from 1843 to 1944. It was founded by Édouard Charton with the first issue published on 4 March 1843, it became the first illustrated newspaper in France then, a ...

'' contracting for a French monopoly that lasted until 1909. He also worked on potential theory and the mathematics of physics. He was an Invited Speaker for the ICM in 1908 in Rome and in 1932 in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

Works

* ''Eine Theorie der Gravitation und der elektrischen Erscheinungen auf Grundlage der Hydrodynamik'' (2nd ed., 1896) * ''Ueber Molecular-Funktion'' (1897) * ''Lehrbuch der Potentialtheorie'' (Berlin, 1899–1901) * ''Freie und erzwungene Schwingungen'' (1910) * ''Handbuch der Phototelegraphie'' (1911) * ''Bildrundfunk'' with

Eugen Nesper Eugen Heinrich Josef Nesper (5 July 1879 – 3 May 1961) was a German radio pioneer and high-frequency technician. Life Eugen Nesper was born in Meiningen, and studied electrical engineering and economics until 1902 at the Technische Hochschul ...

(1926) He also contributed numerous articles to such journals as ''Berichte der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaft'', ''Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences'', and ''Naturwissenschaftliches Wochenschrift''.

References

External links

*
HF-Fax Fascimile & SSTV History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korn, Arthur 1870 births 1945 deaths 20th-century German physicists Stevens Institute of Technology faculty Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty Technical University of Berlin faculty Leipzig University alumni Scientists from Wrocław Jewish physicists

Life

Works

See also

References

External links