Eleonore Trefftz (15 August 1920 – 22 October 2017) was a German physicist known for her work on

molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...

and nuclear physics. She was appointed as a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in 1971.

Biography

Trefftz was born in

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

, North Rhine-Westphalia, on 15 August 1920. She was raised in

Loschwitz Loschwitz is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Dresden, Germany, incorporated in 1921. It consists of ten quarters (''Stadtteile''): Loschwitz is a villa quarter located at the slopes north of the Elbe river. At the top of the hillside is the quar ...

, Dresden from 1923, after her father was appointed as a professor of

applied mechanics Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and e ...

at TU Dresden in 1922. Between 1941 and 1945, Trefftz studied at TU Dresden and remained here until 1948, where she engaged in research and made assignments on theoretical physics, assisted by Friedrich Hund. In 1948, Trefftz became a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, where she researched the transition probabilities of spectral lines. In 1971, Trefftz became a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics; she was the second woman to be appointed to the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

, after

Margot Becke-Goehring Margot Becke-Goehring (born 10 June 1914 in Allenstein; died 14 November 2009 in Heidelberg) was a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg and she was the first female rector of a university in West Germany - the Heidelber ...

. While Trefftz primarily worked on

and nuclear physics, she was also associated with

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 ...

. Trefftz helped develop programming techniques to assist the Max Planck Institute in using computerised

data processing Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of ''information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an ...

. She spent the remainder of her scientific career at the Max Planck Institute, becoming an Emeritus Scientific Member of the Institute for Astrophysics in Garching bei München upon her retirement. She died in Munich on 22 October 2017. TU Dresden has introduced the Eleonore Trefftz Programme for Visiting Women Professors to support female scientists by providing year-long research and teaching roles. Minor planet 7266 Trefftz, discovered in 1973, was named in her honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trefftz, Eleonore 1920 births 2017 deaths 20th-century German physicists 20th-century German women scientists German women physicists Max Planck Society people Max Planck Institute directors