Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (July 14, 1911 – February 2, 1998) was a German-born Jewish-American
nuclear physicist
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
. She earned her PhD from the
University of Munich, and though her family suffered during
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, Gertrude was able to escape to London and later to the United States. Her research during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
was classified, and not published until 1946. She and her husband,
Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber (April 18, 1911 – May 11, 2011) was an American physicist, who in 1957 (with Lee Grodzins and Andrew Sunyar) established that neutrinos have negative helicity.
Early life and childhood
He was born on April 18, 1911, in L ...
, spent most of their post-war careers at
Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Early life
Gertrude Scharff was born 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 ...
, Germany on July 14, 1911.
She attended
public school
Public school may refer to:
* State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government
* Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...
, and it is there that she developed an interest in science.
Unusual for the time, her parents supported this interest — possibly because her father had wanted to be a chemist before being forced to support his family with the death of his father.
Goldhaber's early life was filled with hardship.
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
she recalled having to eat bread made partially of
sawdust, and her family suffered through the
hyperinflation of
postwar Germany, although it did not prevent her from attending the
University of Munich.
Education
At the University of Munich Gertrude quickly developed an interest in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
.
Although her family had supported her early interest in science, her father encouraged her to study law at Munich.
In defense of her decision to study physics Gertrude told her father, “I’m not interested in the law. I want to understand what the world is made of.”
As was usual for students at the time, Gertrude spent semesters at various other universities including the
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...
, the
University of Zurich, and the
University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
(where she would meet her future husband) before returning to the University of Munich.
Upon returning to Munich Gertrude took up a position with
Walter Gerlach to perform her thesis research.
In her thesis Gertrude studied the effects of stress on magnetization.
She graduated in 1935 and published her thesis in 1936.
With the rise to power 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 1933, Gertrude faced increasing difficulties in Germany because of her
Jewish heritage
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and Ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practic ...
.
During this time her father was arrested and jailed, and although he and his wife were able to flee to Switzerland upon his release, they later returned to Germany and were murdered in
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
Gertrude remained in Germany until the completion of her
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
in 1935, at which point she fled to
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 ...
.
Although Gertrude's parents did not escape the Nazis, her sister Liselotte did.
Career
For the first six months of her stay in London, Gertrude lived off the money she made from selling her
Leica
Leica Camera AG () is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes and microscopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), in Wetzlar, Germany.
...
camera, as well as money earned from translating German to English.
Gertrude found that having a Ph.D. was a disadvantage as there were more spots for refugee students than for refugee scientists.
She wrote to 35 other refugee scientists looking for work, and was told by all but one that there were already too many refugee scientists already working.
[ Bond and Henley 1999, p. 7] Only Maurice Goldhaber wrote back offering any hope, stating that he thought she might be able to find work in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
.
Gertrude was able to find work in
George Paget Thomson
Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction.
Education and early life
Thomson ...
's lab working on
electron diffraction
Electron diffraction refers to the bending of electron beams around atomic structures. This behaviour, typical for waves, is applicable to electrons due to the wave–particle duality stating that electrons behave as both particles and waves. Si ...
.
Although she had a post-doctoral position with Thomson, Gertrude realized that she was not going to be offered a real position with him and so looked for other work.
In 1939 Gertrude married
Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber (April 18, 1911 – May 11, 2011) was an American physicist, who in 1957 (with Lee Grodzins and Andrew Sunyar) established that neutrinos have negative helicity.
Early life and childhood
He was born on April 18, 1911, in L ...
.
She then moved to
Urbana __NOTOC__
Urbana can refer to:
Places Italy
*Urbana, Italy
United States
*Urbana, Illinois
**Urbana (conference), a Christian conference formerly held in Urbana, Illinois
*Urbana, Indiana
* Urbana, Iowa
*Urbana, Kansas
* Urbana, Maryland
*Urbana, ...
,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
to join him at the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
.
The state of Illinois had strict
anti-nepotism laws at the time which prevented Gertrude Goldhaber from being hired by the university because her husband already had a position there.
Gertrude was granted neither salary nor laboratory space, and worked in Maurice's lab as an unpaid assistant.
Since Maurice's lab was only set up for
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
research, Gertrude Goldhaber took up research in that field as well.
During this time Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber had two sons: Alfred and Michael.
Goldhaber was eventually given a soft-money line by the department to help support her research.
Goldhaber studied neutron-proton and neutron-nucleus reaction
cross sections in 1941, and gamma radiation emission and absorption by
nuclei in 1942.
Around this time she also observed that
spontaneous nuclear fission is accompanied by the release of neutrons — a result that had been theorized earlier but had yet to be shown.
Her work with spontaneous nuclear fission was
classified during
the war, and was only published after the war ended in 1946.
Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber moved from Illinois to
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
where they both joined the staff of
Brookhaven National Laboratory.
[ Bond and Henley 1999, p. 6] At the laboratory she founded a series of monthly lectures known as the Brookhaven Lecture Series which is still continuing .
[ Brookhaven Lecture Series]
Honors
* 1947 — elected as a fellow of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
* 1972 — elected to
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
(the third female physicist to be so honored)
* 1982 —
Long Island Achiever’s Award in Science
* 1984 —
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
visiting scholar
* 1990 — Outstanding Woman Scientist Award from the New York Chapter of the
Association for Women Scientists
Legacy
In 2001,
Brookhaven National Laboratory created
the Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber Distinguished Fellowships in her honor. These prestigious Fellowships are awarded to early-career scientists with exceptional talent and credentials who have a strong desire for independent research at the frontiers of their fields.
Goldhaber Distinguished Fellowships
/ref>
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
External Links
* Archival papers held at the Leo Baeck Institute at the Center for Jewish History
Gertrude S. Goldhaber Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldhaber, Gertrude Scharff
1911 births
1998 deaths
American nuclear physicists
Experimental physicists
American women physicists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Brookhaven National Laboratory staff
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
20th-century German physicists
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
20th-century American women scientists
Women nuclear physicists
Fellows of the American Physical Society