Christian Møller (22 December 1904, 14 January 1980) was a Danish

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

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 cau ...

who made fundamental contributions to the

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

theory of gravitation In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force be ...

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 contributions ...

. He is known for

Møller–Plesset perturbation theory Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP) is one of several quantum chemistry post-Hartree–Fock ab initio methods in the field of computational chemistry. It improves on the Hartree–Fock method by adding electron correlation effects by me ...

and Møller scattering. His suggestion in 1938 to

Otto Frisch Otto Robert Frisch (1 October 1904 – 22 September 1979) was an Austrian-born British physicist who worked on nuclear physics. With Otto Stern and Immanuel Estermann, he first measured the magnetic moment of the proton. With his aunt, Lise M ...

that the newly discovered process of

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...

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 or "positive feedback loop" of thes ...

, leading to the

Frisch–Peierls memorandum The Frisch–Peierls memorandum was the first technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon. It was written by expatriate German-Jewish physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls in March 1940 while they were both working for Mark Oliphant a ...

, 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, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy, the pot ...

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 fr ...

and the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

. 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 Tetrad ('group of 4') or tetrade may refer to: * Tetrad (area), an area 2 km x 2 km square * Tetrad (astronomy), four total lunar eclipses within two years * Tetrad (chromosomal formation) * Tetrad (general relativity), or frame field ** Tetra ...

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 allows ...

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 theory of relativity
',

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press 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 launched a British division in the 1950s. Academic Press was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier said in 2000 it would buy Harcourt, a deal complete ...

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moller, Christian 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

Møller tetrad theory of gravitation

Books

See also

References