The Adventurous Life of Friedrich Georg Houtermans, Physicist (1903-1966)

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Friedrich’s Birth and Family Background

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 1-3

3. His Youth in Vienna

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 5-9

4. Student in Göttingen

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 11-15

5. Assistant in Berlin

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 17-21

6. Fritz’s First Marriage

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 23-25

7. Life in Berlin

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 27-29

8. Emigration to U.K. and U.R.R.S.

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 31-36

9. Professor in Kharkov

   • Edoardo Amaldi

   Pages 37-41

10. The Beginning of the Great Trials

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 43-48

11. The Years of Prison

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 49-57

12. An Overview of the Situation in Central Europe

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 59-61

13. More About Fritz and Konstantin

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 63-66

14. A Few Other Physicists’ Political Troubles

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 67-72

15. Finally Out of Prison!

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 73-77

16. Shaken by World-Wide Storms. Fritz’s Second Family

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 79-81

17. An Outline of the Early Development of Applied Nuclear Energy in Germany

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 83-93

18. From Berlin to Ronneburg

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 95-97

19. In Göttingen Again

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 99-103

20. Houtermans’ Third Family

    • Edoardo Amaldi

    Pages 105-107

The physicist Friedrich Houtermans (1903-1966) was an essential promoter and proponent of the development of physics in Berne. He introduced a number of activities in the field of elementary particles, with a special focus on the physics of cosmic rays, and important contributions in applied physics.

This biography of Houtermans was written by Edoardo Amaldi and was almost finished just before his unexpected death in 1989. The editors have only corrected typographical errors and have introduced only minimal text changes in order to preserve the original content. Additionally they have collected and included unpublished pictures and memories from Houtermans’ students and collaborators. The text is the result of a thorough and intensive study on Houtermans’ life and character carried out by Edoardo Amaldi. It is more than a biography, since the figure of Houtermans is set in a historical perspective of Europe between the two world wars. This book will be of great interest to historians and historians of science.

• Biography of Fritz Houtermans
• Cosmic Ray Research
• Cosmochemistry
• Europe Between the Two World Wars
• History of Physics
• History of Science
• Isotopes Meteorites
• Nuclear Physics
• Research of Radioactivity

• , Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

  Saverio Braccini, Antonio Ereditato

• , Department of Physics, University of Naples, Napoli, Italy

  Paola Scampoli

• Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

  Edoardo Amaldi

Prof. Edoardo Amaldi (5 September 1908 – 5 December 1989) was an Italian physicist. He graduated under the supervision of Enrico Fermi. After the second world war, Amaldi held the chair of "General Physics" at the Sapienza University of Rome. He was the co-founder of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, and of CERN and ESRO. He pioneered the European  search for gravitational waves. Edorardo Amaldi is the original author of the Houtermans biography and left behind an incomplete version of it that was now completed by the Editors Profs. Braccini, Ereditato (both University of Bern) and Scampoli (University of Naples).

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