Christa Jungnickel (11 April 1935 – 12 August 1990) was a German-American historian of science.

Life

Jungnickel was originally from Germany, one of three daughters of a German soldier who was lost in Russia during World War II. As a teenager, she emigrated with her family to the US; her mother, formerly an office worker, became a house cleaner in San Francisco. Jungnickel herself began work after high school as a typist and later an accountant for a stock broker, while studying part-time at the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...

. She eventually transferred to full-time study at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, working there with historian Jacqueline Strain. After graduating in 1969, she began graduate study at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

, but transferred in 1972 to

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, and completed her doctorate at Johns Hopkins in 1978 with a dissertation concerning the Royal Saxon Academy of Sciences. Jungnickel's doctoral supervisor was

Russell McCormmach Russell Keith McCormmach (born 9 October 1933) is an American historian of physics. McCormmach grew up in Walla Walla, Washington and studied physics at Washington State University, Washington State College with bachelor's degree in 1955. As a Rho ...

, whom she married. When Jungnickel fell ill of cancer in 1983, McCormmach left academia and they moved to

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

, where they remained until she died in 1990 of an unrelated heart condition.

Books

Jungnickel is best known for her two-volume work '' Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein'' (University of Chicago Press, 1986), which she coauthored with her husband

. It won the

Pfizer Award The Pfizer Award is awarded annually by the History of Science Society "in recognition of an outstanding book dealing with the history of science" that was "published in English during a period of three calendar years immediately preceding the ...

in 1987, and was reprinted in a revised and shortened form as ''The Second Physicist: On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany'' (Springer, 2017). With McCormmach, Jungnickel also wrote a biography of

Henry Cavendish Henry Cavendish ( ; 10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was an English experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable a ...

, the book ''Cavendish'' (

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

, 1996), updated as ''Cavendish: The Experimental Life'' (Bucknell University Press, 1999).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jungnickel, Christa 1935 births 1990 deaths American historians of science American women historians Stanford University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni German emigrants to the United States 20th-century American women 20th-century American people