FRANZ S. EXNER

'Franz Serafin Exner' (24 March, 1849 - October 15, 1926) was an important Austrian physicist.

Contents

Life

Achievements

Books by Exner

References

Life

Exner comes from one of the most important university families of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The same Exner family includes , , , and . Exner the youngest of five children of parents and Charlotte Dusensy. His father Franz Serafin was, from 1831 to 1848, a professor for philosophy in Prague and 1848 onwards was on the Board of Education in Vienna and an influential reformer of Austrian university education. He began his physics study in Vienna in 1867 and attained a doctorate after an academic year in Zurich under August Kundt, also working with Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, in the year 1871 in Vienna to towards the DPhil. The largest influence on his training was for his habilitation one year later with a work entitled "over diffusion by liquid lamellas." In 1879 he tool up an appointment as extra full professor and in 1891 this was renamed to full professor of the chemico-physical institute, 1902 to "second physical Institut", as a successor to Johann Josef Loschmidt, who had always worried about the "Exner children" as a close friend of family after the early death of his parents. When Exner was appointed 1908 as chancellor of the University of Vienna, he was at the pinnacle of his scientific activities.

Achievements

Franz Serafin Exner can be described as a physicist with a strong vision, cultivating versatile and highly educated pupils. He was pioneer in numerous areas of modern physics. The early introduction of topics such as radioactivity, spectroscopy, electrochemistry (galvanic element), electricity in the atmosphere, and color theory in Austria can all be owed to Exner's doing. His most famous pupils included Marian Smoluchowski, a Viennese physicist of Polish descent, who discovered a theory independently of Albert Einstein and Friedrich Hasenohrl for Brownian motion, and Victor Hess, whose attention for the exciting and extensive topic of atmospheric electricity and associated radioactivity was influenced by Franz Exner, together with , a pioneer in the study of the atmospheric electricity, and with Hess' discovery of "cosmic radiation" receiving the Nobel prize later, and the later Nobel prize winner Erwin Schroedinger, who began in 1911 as Exner's assistant, with "studies on the kinetics of dielectrics, melting point, pyro- and piezoelectricity" and finally . In the 1920s and 1930s most physics chairs were occupied by pupils of Exner: , Brünn, later full professor in Prague; , Prague; , Graz; Marian Smoluchowski, Czernowitz, Krakau; , Vienna; , Innsbruck, Vienna; , extra full professor Vienna; Friedrich Hasenohrl, Vienna; , , Vienna; , Brünn, later USA; , Vienna; , Innsbruck; , Vienna; Felix Ehrenhaft, Vienna; , Brünn; Wilhelm Schmidt, Vienna; , Vienna; Victor Francis Hess, Graz, Innsbruck, New York; , Graz; , Vienna; Erwin Schrödinger, Jena, Leipzig, Zurich, Berlin, Graz, Dublin, Vienna; and Hans Thirring, Vienna.

Books by Exner

★ Franz Exner und Sigmund Exner: ''Die physikalischen Grundlagen der Blütenfärbungen'', 1910

★ W C Röntgen und F Exner: ''Über die Anwendung des Eiskalorimeters zur Bestimmung der Intensität der Sonnenstrahlen''. Wien Ber 69: 228 (1874)

★ Franz Exner: ''Vom Chaos zur Gegenwart'', 1926 (unveröffentlicht)

References

★ Berta Karlik, Erich Schmid: ''Franz Serafin Exner und sein Kreis. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Physik in Osterreich'', Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1982

★ Hans Benndorf: ''Zur Erinnerung an Franz Exner'', 1927