Reinhard Mecke (born 14 July 1895 in

Stettin Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major seaport, the largest city of northwestern Poland, and se ...

; died 30 December 1969) was a German physicist, who focused on chemical physics. He was one of the pioneers of

infrared spectroscopy Infrared spectroscopy (IR spectroscopy or vibrational spectroscopy) is the measurement of the interaction of infrared radiation with matter by absorption, emission, or reflection. It is used to study and identify chemical substances or functio ...

. Reinhard Mecke studied from 1913 mathematics and physics at the universities of

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

and

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

and did his doctorate at Franz Richarz in Marburg in 1920 on halos in homogeneous nebulas. arburg, Phil. Diss., 1919/ref> He then worked for Heinrich Konen at the university of

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, where he

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellen ...

in 1923 on spectral bands of jod and where he became a

privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

. 1927 he married one of his PhD students M. Guillery and had with her nine children including

Dieter Mecke Dieter Mecke (8 March 1933, in Heidelberg – 28 May 2013, in Tübingen) was a German biochemist and chemist. Life Dieter Mecke was the fourth of nine children of the physicist Reinhard Mecke, after whom Mecke's symbols have been named. He st ...

. 1932 he became extraordinary professor for chemical physics at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

, as proposed by Max Trautz. He investigated spectral bands of evaporated water and

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

and

Raman spectroscopy Raman spectroscopy () (named after physicist C. V. Raman) is a Spectroscopy, spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Ra ...

of small organic molecules. He proved the existence of the

spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

onto rotary oscillation spectra of molecules. 1937 he became professor for theoretical physics at the university of Freiburg and investigated there

hydrogen bond In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (H-bond) is a specific type of molecular interaction that exhibits partial covalent character and cannot be described as a purely electrostatic force. It occurs when a hydrogen (H) atom, Covalent bond, covalently b ...

s by infrared spectroscopy. 1942 he became ordinary professor and director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry. Additionally, he was in 1958 the founder and until 1968 the director of the Institute for electric materials (Institut für Elektrowerkstoffe) of the

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft The Fraunhofer Society () is a German publicly-owned research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science (as opposed to the Max Planck Society, which works primarily on basic sc ...

and the head of the Institute for Physical Chemistry. 1963 he retired in Freiburg. 1964 he became member of the Leopoldina. 1965 he received the Bunsen medal. He was co-author of the ''Handbuch der Physik'' by Geiger and Scheel. His article ''Vorlesungstechnik'' with Anton Lambertz of the first volume was also published as a book.Reinhard Mecke, Anton Lambertz: ''Leitfaden der praktischen Experimentalphysik für Vorlesung und Unterricht.'' Julius Springer, Berlin 1926, . He was one of the organisers of the Conferences of nobel laureates in Lindau.

Literature

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References

External links

Theoretical Chemistry Genealogy ProjectGeschichte des Instituts für Physikalische Chemie, Freiburg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mecke, Reinhard 1895 births 1969 deaths Scientists from Szczecin 20th-century German physicists Academic staff of the University of Bonn Academic staff of Heidelberg University