Christian Møller (22 December 1904 in Hundslev, Als14 January 1980 in Ordrup) was a Danish

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 ...

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 ca ...

who made fundamental contributions to the

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...

, theory of gravitation and

quantum chemistry Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contribution ...

. He is known for Møller–Plesset perturbation theory and Møller scattering. His suggestion in 1938 to

Otto Frisch Otto Robert Frisch FRS (1 October 1904 – 22 September 1979) was an Austrian-born British physicist who worked on nuclear physics. With Lise Meitner he advanced the first theoretical explanation of nuclear fission (coining the term) and first ...

that the newly discovered process of

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which the atomic nucleus, nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller atomic nucleus, nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma ray, gamma photons, and releases a very large ...

might create surplus energy, led Frisch to conceive of the concept of the

nuclear chain reaction In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...

, leading to the Frisch–Peierls memorandum, which kick-started the development of

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity *Nuclear binding energy Nuclear binding energy in experimental physics is the minimum energy that is required t ...

through the

MAUD Committee The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram fro ...

and the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. Møller was the director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Theoretical Study Group between 1954 and 1957 and later a member of the same organization's Scientific Policy Committee (1959-1972).

Møller tetrad theory of gravitation

In 1961, Møller showed that a tetrad description of gravitational fields allows a more rational treatment of the energy–momentum complex than in a theory based on the

metric tensor In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a metric tensor (or simply metric) is an additional structure on a manifold (such as a surface) that allows defining distances and angles, just as the inner product on a Euclidean space allo ...

alone. The advantage of using tetrads as gravitational variables was connected with the fact that this allowed to construct expressions for the energy-momentum complex which had more satisfactory transformation properties than in a purely metric formulation.

Books

*''The world and the atom'', London, 1940.The National Library of Australia's Catalogue
/ref> *
The theory of relativity
',

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, Oxford, 1972.
''A study in gravitational collapse'', Kobenhavn : Munksgaard, 1975.''On the crisis in the theory of gravitation and a possible solution'', Kobenhavn : Munksgaard, 1978.
*''Evidence for gravitational theories'' (ed.),

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes refere ...

, 1963.
''Interview with Dr. Christian Moller by Thomas S. Kuhn at Copenhagen July 29, 1963 ''
Oral History Transcript — Dr. Christian Moller

References

20th-century Danish physicists Danish chemists Quantum physicists 1904 births 1980 deaths Relativity theorists People associated with CERN People from Gentofte Municipality Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences {{denmark-scientist-stub

Møller tetrad theory of gravitation

Books

See also

References