Christian Gerthsen


Christian Gerthsen was a Danish-German physicist who made contributions to atomic and nuclear physics, as well as writing numerous textbooks.

Education

Gerthsen studied at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1913 to 1914. Circa 1914 to 1918, he served in the military. Circa 1919 to 1920 he attended the Georg-August University of Göttingen. In 1920, he went to the University of Kiel. With Walther Kreisel as his advisor, he was awarded his doctorate in 1929. He stayed on as Kossel’s assistant until 1930 and then went to the University of Tübingen as a Privatdozent.

Career

In 1932, Gerthsen was appointed ordinarius professor of experimental physics and director of the physics institute at the University of Giessen. In 1939, he went to the First Physics Institute at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he was director. From 1948, he was at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Gerthsen co-authored a number of textbooks with Karl Bechert. One of Gerthsen’s textbooks on physics, first published in 1948, has since his death seen continuous development and is, as of 2020, in its 25th updated edition, more than 50 years after his death.

Selected Literature