Victor Francis Hess
Victor Francis Hess was an Austrian physicist born in 1883 at Waldstein Castle, whose early life was marked by financial stability and access to advanced education. He studied science at the University of Graz, where he completed his PhD in physics, initially focusing on optics under the guidance of renowned scientist Paul Drude. Following Drude's passing, Hess worked at the University of Vienna and later at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where he became intrigued by atmospheric radiation.
Hess’s pioneering research in the early 20th century led to the discovery of cosmic rays, high-energy particles emanating from outer space, which he observed during a series of balloon flights. His groundbreaking findings, presented in 1913, challenged existing theories about radiation sources and were initially met with skepticism but eventually gained acceptance, influencing the field of particle physics significantly.
In 1936, Hess was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions. The rise of Nazism prompted his relocation to the United States, where he continued his research and advocated against nuclear weapon testing, focusing on the long-term effects of radiation on human health. Hess's work laid foundational principles for later advancements in nuclear and particle physics, with lasting implications in the scientific community. He passed away in 1964, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inform research today.
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Victor Francis Hess
Austrian physicist
- Born: June 24, 1883; Schloss Waldstein, Austria
- Died: December 17, 1964; Mount Vernon, New York
Physicist Victor Francis Hess discovered the existence of cosmic rays in 1912, earning him the Nobel Prize and advancing the study of nuclear physics.
Primary field: Physics
Specialty: Nuclear physics
Early Life
Victor Francis Hess was born in Waldstein Castle in Austria in 1883. His father, Vinzenz Hess, was the chief forester of the castle, and Hess grew up in the company of Prince Oettingen-Wallerstein. The financial security and connections of his family allowed him access to an advanced education, and in 1901, he went on to study science at the University of Graz, finishing his first degree in 1905 and continuing on to complete a PhD in physics. Hess’s first interests were in the study of optics, and he accepted a position to work with a worldwide expert in the field, Paul Drude. In preparation to move to Berlin and begin what he thought would be his life’s work, however, Hess learned that Drude had committed suicide, leaving the young scientist to scramble to find a new position. He found himself instead working at the University of Vienna, where an expert in radiation, Franz Exner, included him in his group’s groundbreaking research.
Exner specialized in ionization and electricity in the atmosphere, topics that would come to fascinate Hess. Through the research of their colleagues, Hess and others were beginning to doubt the prevalent theory that ionization in the atmosphere was a direct result of radiation within the Earth. Hess continued to work at the university and, in 1910, took a position at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Radium Research. There, he worked with another leading international authority on radioactivity, the physicist Stefan Meyer. Able to focus more of his energy on research than ever before, Hess began in those years what would become the defining work of his life.
Life’s Work
Despite the common belief that radiation in the atmosphere came from the Earth itself, electroscopes seemed to indicate that radiation levels increased farther up in the atmosphere. This puzzling incongruity became the focus of Hess’s research while at the Institute for Radium Research.
In 1910, Hess learned that another scientist had measured radiation levels by climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The idea inspired Hess, who was an amateur balloonist. With the help of his colleagues, he designed an ionization chamber capable of measuring ionization levels with more accuracy than ever before. He then began a long series of flights in his air balloons, rising over five thousand meters in the air. He traveled at night and during the day, trying to account for possible ionization from the sun and carrying with him a wide range of instruments to measure atmospheric data and radiation levels. Hess made the last of these flights in 1913, announcing soon after to the scientific community that ionization decreased for a short distance but then increased rapidly in the upper atmosphere, reaching levels that were significantly greater than those on the ground. The only possible conclusion, he insisted, was that radiation was bombarding the Earth from a source in outer space.
Hess’s ideas were controversial at first, and scientists around the world attempted to re-create them with varying results. Slowly, however, it was accepted that Hess had discovered proof of a legitimate natural phenomenon, now called “cosmic rays.” Knowing that these nuclear particles not only existed but existed at extremely high energy levels allowed physicists to study high-energy particle collisions before they had the means to re-create them in the laboratory.
Hess found himself winning international awards and, in 1921, took a temporary position conducting research in the United States. He also married his first wife, Mary Bertha Warner, in 1920. Beginning in 1923, he returned to Europe as a major international figure in the research of cosmic rays. He used his connections with the University of Innsbruck (where he worked briefly) and in the United States to find funding in 1931 for an observation facility on the top of an Austrian mountain. From the height of the mountain, Hess used advanced scientific equipment to study radiation levels with renewed excitement and increased precision. In 1936, he was awarded the half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on cosmic radiation.
Although Hess could hardly have had a more successful career as a physicist in Europe, the rise of Nazism and outbreak of World War II put an end to his time in Austria. Hess’s wife was Jewish, and Hess himself had spoken publicly against some Nazi ideas. When, in 1938, he learned that he and his wife were to be arrested and placed in a concentration camp, they fled immediately, landing soon after in the United States. Hess took a position at Fordham University, where he would spend the remainder of his career.
The research connected with the atomic bomb rapidly advanced the study of radiation during World War II, and the results of the United States dropping bombs on Japan created a new urgency in studying the effects radiation had on the human body. In this scientific climate, Hess’s expertise was invaluable. He conducted tests on radioactive fallout through the United States, measured radioactivity in New York subways, and developed a method for detecting radium poisoning in the human body at much earlier stages than had been previously possible.
In 1958, he retired from teaching but retained a research position at Fordham until his death in 1964. There, he focused more intently on the long-term effects radiation has on the human body, carefully measuring levels in the blood and breath of people who had worked with radioactive substances. This research found him a new role as a public advocate against the testing of nuclear weapons. After a lifetime of studying radiation, Hess firmly believed that science knew too little to accurately predict the ways that radiation would change the Earth and the people living on it.
Impact
The discovery of cosmic rays had vast and significant impacts on the development of twentieth-century physics. Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that are charged to an incredibly high energy, and realizing their existence opened up a new world of experimentation for theoretical physicists.
While the majority of cosmic rays are simple protons and other particles that were already familiar to scientists, a small amount of cosmic rays include unusual particles, such as antimatter. Although Hess and his colleagues were relatively unaware of the specific nature of cosmic rays, they were suddenly able to measure and experiment with high-energy particles. Carl D. Anderson, for instance, the man with whom Hess shared the Nobel Prize, set to work with a cloud chamber, a lead plate, and a magnet. When the cosmic rays passed through this cloud chamber, the magnet caused slight bending in the path. The information Anderson gathered allowed him to discover the positron, a positively charged particle that was the first scientific evidence of antimatter.
As much as experiments with cosmic rays formed the foundation for particle physics, the devices created to conduct these experiments were also invaluable. The cloud chambers and similar apparatuses often used the same basic concepts as devices that detect radiation today. As nuclear and particle physics increasingly dominate contemporary science, Hess’s ideas and methodologies remain the significant and invaluable first steps on which all else is based.
Bibliography
Dahl, Per F. Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy. London: Institute of Physics, 1999. Print. An illustrated account of the scientific push to discover nuclear energy during World War II, including Hess’s contribution and ideas.
Schlickeiser, Reinhard. Cosmic Ray Astrophysics. New York: Springer, 2010. Print. An explanation of cosmic rays, with notes on the history of their discovery and an emphasis on implications and research in twenty-first-century physics. Illustrations, bibliography, index.
Tully, Christopher G. Elementary Particle Physics in a Nutshell. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2011. Print. A basic overview of particle physics, demonstrating the modern understanding of ideas first researched following Hess’s early experiments. Illustrations, bibliography, index.