Alois Handl (22 July 1837,

Feldkirch, Vorarlberg Feldkirch () is a city rights, town in the western Austrian States of Austria, state of Vorarlberg, bordering on Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is the administrative centre of the Feldkirch (district), Feldkirch district. After Dornbirn, it i ...

– 1915,

Czernowitz Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivtsi serv ...

) was an Austrian

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. In 1859 he obtained his doctorate in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, later becoming a professor at the University of Lemberg. Afterwards he taught classes at the military academy in

Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; Lower_Austria.html" ;"title=".e. Lower Austria">.e. Lower Austria , ) is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administr ...

. In 1876 he established the chair of

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

at the University of Czernowitz, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1906. Following his retirement, Handl was succeeded at Czernowitz by

Josef Geitler von Armingen Josef Karl Franz Otto Geitler, Ritter von Armingen (14 September 1870 – 20 June 1923) was an Austrian physicist born in Smíchov, today a district in Prague. He is remembered for his investigations of electromagnetic waves. He studied in Prague ...

(1870-1923). As a physicist he conducted studies in the fields of

crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

, barometry, hydrodensitometry, and also did research involving

light absorption In physics, absorption of electromagnetic radiation is how matter (typically electrons bound in atoms) takes up a photon's energy—and so transforms electromagnetic energy into internal energy of the absorber (for example, thermal energy). A ...

, the specific resistance of liquids, and

color vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different frequencies independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of the larger visual system and is mediated by a co ...

in animals, to name a few. With

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

Richard Pribram (1847-1928), he conducted investigations on the

viscosity Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's rate-dependent drag (physics), resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighboring portions relative to one another. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of ''thickness''; for e ...

of different

organic compounds Some chemical authorities define an organic compound as a chemical compound that contains a carbon–hydrogen or carbon–carbon bond; others consider an organic compound to be any chemical compound that contains carbon. For example, carbon-co ...

, with results of their work being published in the ''Sitzungsberichte'' of the

Austrian Academy of Sciences The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every fi ...

and in

Wilhelm Ostwald Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (; – 4 April 1932) was a Latvian chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst and Svante Arrhenius. ...

’s ''

Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

''. Handl's textbook of physics for middle-school students, "''Lehrbuch der Physik für die oberen Classen der Mittelschulen''", was published over several editions.Verordnungsblatt für den Dienstbereich des K. K. Ministeriums für Kultus
by Austria. Ministerium für Cultus und Unterricht

References

Scientists and mathematicians in Czernowitz University by Robert Rosner
(biographical information) {{DEFAULTSORT:Handl, Alois Academic staff of the University of Lviv Academic staff of Chernivtsi University People from Feldkirch, Vorarlberg 1915 deaths 1837 births Scientists from the Austrian Empire Physicists from Austria-Hungary 19th-century Austrian physicists University of Vienna alumni 20th-century Austrian physicists