Ferdinand Kurlbaum (4 October 1857 in

Burg bei Magdeburg Burg (; also known as Burg bei Magdeburg to distinguish from other places with the same name) is a town of about 22,400 inhabitants on the Elbe–Havel Canal in northeastern Germany, northeast of Magdeburg. It is the capital of the Jerichower L ...

– 29 July 1927 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

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 ...

Life and work

As the son of a

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

, he had to follow his frequently transferred father. Problems at school were the result, and it wasn't until he was 23 that he graduated from high school. He studied mathematics and physics in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

and

with

Hermann Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...

. In 1887, he completed his dissertation on Determining the wavelength of

Fraunhofer lines The Fraunhofer lines are a set of spectral absorption lines. They are dark absorption lines, seen in the optical spectrum of the Sun, and are formed when atoms in the solar atmosphere absorb light being emitted by the solar photosphere. The l ...

'.'' This was followed by an assistantship in

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

with

Heinrich Kayser Heinrich Gustav Johannes Kayser ForMemRS (; 16 March 1853 – 14 October 1940) was a German physicist and spectroscopist. Biography Kayser was born at Bingen am Rhein. Kayser's early work was concerned with the characteristics of acoustic wav ...

. From 1891 he worked in the ''Optischen Laboratorium'' (optical laboratory) of the

Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) is the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, with scientific and technical service tasks. It is a higher federal authority and a public-law institution directly under fed ...

in Berlin. The physics of light and heat radiation was his subject. Together with

Heinrich Rubens Heinrich Rubens (; 30 March 1865 – 17 July 1922) was a German physicist. He is known for his measurements of the energy of black-body radiation which led Max Planck to the discovery of his Planck's law, radiation law. This was the genesis of Qu ...

, he carried out series of measurements on the radiation intensity of

black bodies A black body or blackbody is an idealized physical object, physical body that absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence (optics), angle of incidence. T ...

. These were important foundations for Planck's law of radiation and thus for

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

. He also studied the use of X-rays in medicine. In 1904, Kurlbaum received an appointment to the ''Technische Hochschule'' at Charlottenburg. In 1908, together with

Adolf Miethe Adolf Miethe (; 25 April 1862, Potsdam – 5 May 1927, Berlin) was a German scientist, lens designer, photochemistry, photochemist, photographer, author and educator. He co-invented the first practical photographic Flash (photography), flash and m ...

, he carried out measurements of the sun's temperature in Upper Egypt. From 1908 to 1925 he was head of the Physics Institute at the ''Technische Hochschule'' at Charlottenburg. Kurlbaum was President of the

German Physical Society The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked ...

from 1910 to 1912 . During World War I, he was a consultant to the Artillery Examination Commission. Kurlbaum married Elisabeth von Siemens in 1895. They had two daughters and a son. The Georg Kurlbaum Prize for innovative economic achievements is named after his son Georg. Ferdinand Kurlbaum was buried in the

Siemens family The ''Siemens family'' is the name of a German nobility, German noble family, family of technology and telecommunications industrialists, whose members were founders and to the present day the largest shareholders of Siemens AG. The family had a we ...

crypt in the park of Schloss Ahlsdorf near Herzberg.

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References

1857 births 1927 deaths 19th-century German physicists 20th-century German physicists Ballistics experts People from Burg bei Magdeburg Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin {{Germany-physicist-stub

Life and work

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See also

References