Jaffé, George C.

Biographical Sketch

George Cecil Jaffé was born in Moscow on January 16, 1880. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of Leipzig in 1903, having studied under Ludwig Boltzmann. In 1903-1904 he worked in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, under J. J. Thomson, and in 1904-1905 and again in 1911-1912 he did research in the laboratory of the Curies in Paris. Resuming his work after the war, he taught first at the University of Leipzig and was then given the chair for theoretical physics at Giessen in 1926. Having been deprived of his position by the Nazi anti-semitic decrees in 1933, Jaffé was without employment until he emigrated to the United States in 1939. He taught at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, until his retirement in 1950, when he moved to Berkeley, California. He died in 1965.

Jaffé specialized in theoretical physics, but was also interested in the experimental conductivity of liquid and solid dielectrics and in the philosophy of science. He wrote two books, Handbuch der Experimental-Physik, vol. 19 (1928), and Zwei Dialoge über Raum und Zeit (1931), and many papers.

From the guide to the George C. Jaffé Papers, 1902-1962, (The Bancroft Library)