Kurd Friedrich Rudolf von Mosengeil, also Curd Friedrich Rudolf von Mosengeil (* 7 March 1884 in Bonn; † 5 September 1906 at
Wildgall
The Wildgall ( it, Collaspro) is, at 3,273 metres above sea level, the third highest peak in the Rieserferner Group, a range in the western part of the High Tauern. It lies within the Italian provinces of South Tyrol in the Rieserferner-Ahrn Nat ...
in
Rieserfernergruppe
The Rieserferner Group ( it, Gruppo delle Vedrette di Ries, german: Rieserfernergruppe) is a mountain range in the Austrian Central Alps. Together with the Ankogel Group, Goldberg Group, Glockner Group, Schober Group, Kreuzeck Group, Granatspitze ...
), 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 caus ...
.
Kurd von Mosengeil was a student of
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
. In 1905, the latter became the most prominent early advocate of the theory of
special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
. In the subsequent years, Planck published several works, in which he explained further consequences of Einstein's theory. He conveyed his enthusiasm to his assistant
Max von Laue
Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
In addition to his scientific endeavors with cont ...
and his student Kurd of Mosengeil, who became the first physicists to habilitate and graduate, respectively, in relativity-related subjects.
Tragically, Kurd von Mosengeil died in a mountaineering accident in
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
in September 1906, as he was completing his doctoral dissertation. Planck and
Wilhelm Wien
Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien (; 13 January 1864 – 30 August 1928) was a German physicist who, in 1893, used theories about heat and electromagnetism to deduce Wien's displacement law, which calculates the emission of a blackbody ...
edited his draft for publication in the
Annalen der Physik
''Annalen der Physik'' (English: ''Annals of Physics'') is one of the oldest scientific journals on physics; it has been published since 1799. The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers on experimental, theoretical, applied, and mathe ...
in 1907. The resulting posthumous paper (''Theorie der stationären Strahlung in einem gleichförmig bewegten Hohlraum'', en:''Theory of stationary radiation in a uniformly moving cavity'') contains the correct relativistic expression for the temperature of a moving body
among other equations of relativistic
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...
and a statement of the
mass-energy equivalence inspired by the work of
Friedrich Hasenöhrl
Friedrich Hasenöhrl (; 30 November 1874 – 7 October 1915) was an Austrian physicist.
Life
Friedrich Hasenöhrl was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary in 1874. His father was a lawyer and his mother belonged to a prominent aristocratic family. A ...
(1904). Planck vouched personally for the scientific content of von Mosengeil's dissertation and believed in its lasting value. Von Mosengeil's results help break new ground in further researches by Planck (1907) and Einstein (1908).
Literature
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mosengeil, Kurd Von
20th-century German physicists
1884 births
1906 deaths
Scientists from Bonn