Hilda Hänchen (later Hilda Lindberg or Hilda Lindberg-Hänchen, 1 September 1919 - 19 October 2013) 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 ca ...

Life and work

Hilda Hänchen received her doctorate in 1943 from the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...

under the supervision of

Fritz Goos Hermann Fritz Gustav Goos (11 January 1883 – 18 May 1968) was a German physicist and astronomer. Life and work Goos attended the '' Johanneum'' '' Gymnasium'' in Hamburg, from where he graduated with a high school diploma in March 1902. Unti ...

, with a dissertation titled ''Über das Eindringen des totalreflektierten Lichtes in das dünnere Medium'' ("On the penetration of totally reflected light into the rarer medium"). 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

she worked as a "managing"

research assistant A research assistant (RA) is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university, a research institute or a privately held organization, for the purpose of assisting in academic or private research. Research assistants are not in ...

at the State Physics Institute 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 ...

(to allow male academics to return after military service, women could be employed as managing assistants only). She concurrently worked at the Physical-Chemical Research Institute in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland pe ...

on war research contracts and was listed in the register of sponsorships of the ''Reichsforschungsrat'' ("Reich Research Council"). From 1949 to 1951 she was a referee for the chemistry journal ''

Chemisches Zentralblatt ''Chemisches Zentralblatt'' is the first and oldest abstracts journal published in the field of chemistry. It covers the chemical literature from 1830 to 1969 and describes therefore the "birth" of chemistry as science, in contrast to alchemy. The ...

''. Around 1975 she was the chairman of the local

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

chapter of ''Deutscher Akademikerinnenbund'' ("Association of German women academics"). With her doctoral advisor Fritz Goos, Hänchen discovered the Goos-Hänchen effect, which is an

optical phenomenon Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter. All optical phenomena coincide with quantum phenomena. Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the sun or moon wit ...

in which

linearly polarized In electrodynamics, linear polarization or plane polarization of electromagnetic radiation is a confinement of the electric field vector or magnetic field vector to a given plane along the direction of propagation. The term ''linear polarizat ...

light undergoes a small lateral shift when totally internally reflected. In 1946 she married physicist Albert Hermann Lindberg (born 1914), who before his retirement in 1979 served as the Vice President and Development Director of Leybold AG. They had three daughters - Renate, Claudia, and Dorothea.

Publications

* * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hänchen, Hilda 1919 births 2013 deaths 20th-century German physicists 20th-century German women scientists German women physicists Scientists from Hamburg University of Hamburg alumni