Ernst Carl Reinhold Brüche (28 March 1900 in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

– 8 February 1985 in

Mosbach Mosbach (; South Franconian: ''Mossbach'') is a town in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the seat of the Neckar-Odenwald district and has a population of approximately 25,000 distributed in six boroughs: Mosbach Town, Lohrbach, N ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

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 ...

. From 1944 to 1972, he was the editor of the ''

Physikalische Blätter ''Physik Journal'' is the official journal of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Before 2002 it was named ''Physikalische Blätter''. History The ''Physikalische Blätter'' was founded in 1943 by Ernst Brüche, who was also the editor from ...

'', a publication of the

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,547, as of 2019, making it the largest physics society in the world. It holds an annual conference () and multiple ...

Education

Brüche studied physics at the Danzig

Technische Hochschule A ''Technische Hochschule'' (, plural: ''Technische Hochschulen'', abbreviated ''TH'') is a type of university focusing on engineering sciences in Germany. Previously, it also existed in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands (), and Finland (, ). ...

from 1919 to 1924. From 1920, he was a teaching assistant in the physics department. In 1926 he completed his doctorate under

Carl Ramsauer Carl Wilhelm Ramsauer (6 February 1879 – 24 December 1955) was a German professor of physics and research physicist, famous for the discovery of the Ramsauer–Townsend effect. He pioneered the field of electron and proton collisions with gas ...

at the Danzig Technische Hochschule. He completed his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1927.Hentschel, 1966, Appendix F; see the entry for Brüche.

Career

Until 1933, Brüche was an unpaid lecturer on experimental and technical physics at the Danzig Technische Hochschule, where he worked on the measurement of electron scattering cross-sections of molecular gases. From 1928 to 1945, he was head of the physics laboratories at the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (

AEG Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...

) in

Reinickendorf Reinickendorf () is the twelfth borough of Berlin. It encompasses the northwest of the city area, including the Berlin Tegel Airport, Lake Tegel, spacious settlements of detached houses as well as housing estates like Märkisches Viertel. Subdivi ...

, a borough of

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 ...

. At the AEG, he worked mostly on geometrical electron optics and developed an

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

. From 1946 to 1951, he was the head scientist of the Süddeutsches Laboratorium, in

. From 1948, he was the managing director of Physik-GmbH in Mosbach. After 1951, he was at the Physikalisches Laboratorium in Mosbach. From 1944 to 1972, Brüche was the founding editor of the

Awards

*1941 –

Leibniz Medal The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities for the German states of Berlin ...

*1972 – First recipient of the Max Born-Medaille für Verantwortung in der Wissenschaft :de:Max Born-Medaille für Verantwortung in der Wissenschaft

Literature

*Ernst Brüche ''Freie Elektronen als Sonden des Baues von Molekeln'', ''Ergebnisse der exakten Naturwissenschaften'' 8 185-228 (1929) *Ernst Brüche ''Die Grundlagen der angewandten geometrischen Elektronenoptik'', ''Electrical Engineering (Archiv für Elektrotechnik)'' Volume 29, Number 2, 79-107 (1935). The author is cited as being at the Forschungs-institut der AEG, Berlin. The article was received on 12 August 1934. *Ernst Brüche ''Zum Entstehen des Elektronenmikroskops'', ''Physikalische Zeitschrift.'' 44 176-180 (1943) * Ernst Brüche ''Deutsche Physik und die Deutschen Physiker'', ''Neue Physikalische Blätter'' 2 232-236 (1946) *Ernst Brüche ''25 Jahre Elektronenmikroskop'', ''Physikalische Blätter'' 13 493-500 (1957)

Books

*Ernst Brüche ''Physiker-Anekdoten'' von Ernst Brüche (Physik-Verl., 1952) *Carl Ramsauer, Rudolf Kollath, und Ernst Brüche ''Wirkungsquerschnitt der Edelgase gegenüber langsamen Elektronen'' (Geest & Portig, 1954) * Theodor Pöschl, Carl Ramsauer, and Ernst Brüche ''Die Physik in Einzelberichten. H. 1. Mechanik'' (Barth, 1956) * Heinz Thiede, Carl Ramsauer, and Ernst Brüche ''Die Physik in Einzelberichten. H. 2. Praktische Akustik'' (Barth, 1957) *Helmut Moser, Helmut Moser, Carl Ramsauer, und Ernst Brüche ''Die Physik in Einzelberichten. H. 3. Wärmelehre?1. Mit Beitr von Helmut Moser.'' (Barth, 1957) *Ernst Brüche ''Aus dem Leben eines Physikers'' (Mosbach, Baden, 1971)

Bibliography

*Hentschel, Klaus, editor and Ann M. Hentschel, editorial assistant and Translator ''Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources'' (Birkhäuser, 1996) *Hentschel, Klaus with Ann M. Hentschel as translator ''The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists 1945 – 1949'' (Oxford, 2007) (To a significant extent, Hentschel draws from Brüche’s diary, which is among Ernst Brüche’s papers at the Landesmuseum für Technik in

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruche, Ernst 1900 births 1985 deaths 20th-century German physicists Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany