Oral history interview with Ludwig Franz Benedikt Biermann, 1978 June 23 and July 6.

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Oral history interview with Ludwig Franz Benedikt Biermann, 1978 June 23 and July 6.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78025043

Overview of work in stellar interiors and plasma physics. Early interest in science; family background. Universität Göttingen (Hans Kienle, Max Born, Richard Courant, James Franck), beginning in 1929; astrophysics as applied science; stellar models (Arthur S. Eddington); Bengt Strömgren; Ludwig Prandtl; Mixing Length Theory; Ph.D. thesis on convection in stellar core; Karl Schwarzschild, Albrecht Unsöld, J. Robert Emden; Biermann updates Unsöld's solar model; work on the theory of sunspots after 1937; similarity of Schwarzschild's work; travels to Edinburgh and Cambridge (R. A. Sampson, George C. McVittie), 1933-1934; mixing wave length theory (Erika Böhm Vitense); interest in solar corona; contact with Otto Struve, Walter Grotrian, Walter Baade, Hannes Alfvén, Bengt Edlén, Max Planck, Max von Laue, Peter Debye; the Berlin-Dahlem colloquia; von Laue stimulates Biermann's interest in cometary physics. Work in quantum mechanics, 1940-1950; contact with Niels Bohr, 1941; Biermann's first influences in plasma physics (Thomas G. Cowling); creation of magnetic fields in stars and stellar model with non-uniform rotation; World War II interrupts publication of research; influence of Karl Wurm; rocket flights to examine solar ultraviolet light (Julius Bartels), 1947. Work on comets, late 1940s; asked by Werner Heisenberg to set up astrophysics group in Göttingen, 1947; work on gas tails of comets; study of solar corona (Eugene Parker); Fred Whipple's contributions to comet theory; Eleanore Trefftz. Work on controlled fusion, beginning 1957; duplication of classified research in U.S. Visiting professorship University of California, Berkeley, 1959-1960, contact with Georg von Hevesy. Later work on the origin of comets.

Sound recordings: 2 sound cassettes (ca. 2.0 hrs.), 2 sessions.Transcript: 44 p.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 8209323

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