Fritz Walther Meissner (German: ''Meißner'') (16 December 1882 – 16 November 1974) was a German technical physicist. Meissner was born in

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 constitu ...

to Waldemar Meissner and Johanna Greger. He studied mechanical engineering and physics at the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

, his doctoral supervisor being

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 ...

. He then entered the

Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) is the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, with scientific and technical service tasks. It is a higher federal authority and a public-law institution directly under fed ...

in Berlin. From 1922 to 1925, he established the world's third largest helium-liquifier, and discovered in 1933 the

Meissner effect The Meissner effect (or Meissner–Ochsenfeld effect) is the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state when it is cooled below the critical temperature. This expulsion will repel a ne ...

,Walther Meißner and R. Ochsenfeld, Naturwissenschaften V21, p. 787 (1933). damping of the

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

in superconductors. One year later, he was called as chair in technical physics at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied science, applied and Natural sci ...

. After

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he became the president of the

Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...

. In 1946, he was appointed director of the academy's first low temperature research commission. Laboratories were located in

Herrsching am Ammersee Herrsching am Ammersee is a municipality in Upper Bavaria, Germany, on the east shore of the Ammersee, southwest of Munich. The population is around 8,000 in winter, increasing to 13,000 in summer. Situated at one terminus of the Munich S-Bahn ...

until 1965, when they were moved to

Garching Garching bei München (''Garching near Munich'') or Garching is a town in Bavaria, Germany, near Munich. It is the home of several research institutes and university departments on its campus. It became a city on 14 September 1990. Location The ...

. Meissner lived alone with his two dogs for the last several years of his life. Meissner died in Munich in 1974.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meissner, Walther Engineers from Berlin Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Technical University of Munich faculty 1882 births 1974 deaths Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences 20th-century German physicists