Wilhelm Lenz
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Wilhelm Lenz (February 8, 1888 in
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...
– April 30, 1957 in
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
) was a German
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 ...
, most notable for his invention of the
Ising model The Ising model () (or Lenz-Ising model or Ising-Lenz model), named after the physicists Ernst Ising and Wilhelm Lenz, is a mathematical model of ferromagnetism in statistical mechanics. The model consists of discrete variables that represent ...
and for his application of the Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector to the old quantum mechanical treatment of hydrogen-like atoms.


Biography

In 1906, Lenz graduated from the Klinger-Oberralschule, a non-classical secondary school in Frankfurt, and went to study mathematics and physics at the
University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...
. From 1908 to 1911, Lenz studied under Arnold Sommerfeld, at the
University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: link=no, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of ...
, and he was granted his doctorate on March 2, 1911. Upon graduation, he stayed on at the University, became Sommerfeld’s assistant on April 1, 1911, and 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 ...
on February 20, 1914, becoming a
Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...
on April 4, 1914. During
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, he served as a radio operator in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
and was awarded the
Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia e ...
Second Class in 1916. From September 30, 1920, he was again an assistant to Sommerfeld at the University of Munich’s Institute of Theoretical Physics, and he was appointed to the title and rank of extraordinarius professor at the University, on November 11, 1920. On December 1, 1920 he became an extraordinarius professor at the University of Rostock. From 1921, until his retirement in 1956, he was at the University of Hamburg, as Ordinarius Professor of Theoretical Physics and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics.Lenz
– ETH Zurich

– Litten
The formation of the new chair and institute for theoretical physics at Hamburg was a result of advances being made in Germany on atomic physics and
quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, q ...
and the personal intervention of Sommerfeld, who helped many of his students get such professorships. At Hamburg, Lenz trained Ernst Ising and J. Hans D. Jensen; his assistants there included
Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...
Pascual Jordan, and Albrecht Unsöld.Unsöld was a former doctoral student of Sommerfeld, who got his degree in 1927. Se
Unsöld
– Mathematics Genealogy Project.
Together with Pauli and Otto Stern, Lenz built up the Institute into an international center for nuclear physics. They maintained close scientific and personal exchanges with the institutes for theoretical physics at the Universities in Munich (Sommerfeld), Göttingen (
Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a ...
), and
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
(
Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...
). When Lenz retired in 1956 he was succeeded by Harry Lehmann.


Books

*Wilhelm Lenz ''Einführungsmathematik für Physiker'' (Verlagsanstalt Wolfenbüttel, 1947)


Notes


References

* Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut Rechenberg ''The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 1 Part 1 The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900 – 1925: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties. ''(Springer, 2001) *Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut Rechenberg ''The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 1 Part 2 The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900 – 1925: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties.'' (Springer, 2001) *Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut Rechenberg ''The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 5 Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. Part 1 Schrödinger in Vienna and Zurich 1887–1925.'' (Springer, 2001) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lenz, Wilhelm Scientists from Frankfurt 20th-century German physicists 1888 births 1957 deaths University of Hamburg faculty University of Rostock faculty University of Göttingen alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni