Martin Deutsch (29 January 1917 – 16 August 2002) was an Austrian-American professor of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. He is best known for being the discoverer of

positronium Positronium (Ps) is a system consisting of an electron and its antimatter, anti-particle, a positron, bound together into an exotic atom, specifically an onium. Unlike hydrogen, the system has no protons. The system is unstable: the two part ...

Early life

Deutsch was born 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. ...

during the First World War to a Jewish family. Both of his parents were physicians; his mother

Helene Deutsch Helene Deutsch (; ; 9 October 1884 – 29 March 1982) was a Polish-American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She founded the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1935, she immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she maintained ...

was a professor of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

and a student and colleague of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

. In 1934, after the Fascist seizure of power in Austria, Deutsch moved to

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, Switzerland. He completed secondary school there and attended the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain): * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Sw ...

for one semester. The following year, young Martin Deutsch accompanied his mother on a trip to the United States. During their outbound journey, the Italians invaded

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

; the family decided that it would be best to resettle in America. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where both parents became influential psychiatrists. Deutsch enrolled at MIT, where he excelled at mathematics and physics. He received his BS degree in 1937, after two years of study. In 1939, he married Suzanne Zeitlin, a native Bostonian who had just graduated from

Simmons College Institutions of learning called Simmons College or Simmons University include: * Simmons University Simmons University (previously Simmons College) is a private university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1899 by ...

with a master's degree in

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

. They had two children,

L. Peter Deutsch L Peter Deutsch (born Laurence Peter Deutsch on August 7, 1946, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American computer scientist and composer. He is the founder of Aladdin Enterprises and creator of Ghostscript, a free software PostScript and PDF int ...

and Nicholas Deutsch. Martin earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1941, under Robley D. Evans leading to a thesis entitled: ''A Study of Nuclear Radiations by Means of a Magnetic Lens Beta Ray Spectrometer.''

Work on the Manhattan Project

Since Deutsch was still a German subject in 1941 (Germany annexed Austria in 1938; under the

Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The two laws were the Law ...

, Jews were stripped of their citizenship and considered "subjects" of the

Reich ( ; ) is a German word whose meaning is analogous to the English word " realm". The terms and are respectively used in German in reference to empires and kingdoms. In English usage, the term " Reich" often refers to Nazi Germany, also ca ...

), he was classified by the U.S. Government as an

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...

. Deutsch was a committed anti-fascist, and wanted to help in the

war effort War effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and civilian—towards the support of a military force, particular during a state of war. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative si ...

, and so he had to wait for two years to receive a security clearance. During that time, he taught and did research at MIT. Deutsch arrived at Los Alamos in 1943, and began working closely with

Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè ( ; ; 1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American nuclear physicist and radiochemist who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was award ...

on problems concerning fission physics. He also worked with his future colleague at MIT,

Victor Weisskopf Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Boh ...

. As it turned out, they had attended the same high school in Vienna, but not at the same time: Weisskopf graduated the year that Deutsch entered the school.

Career at MIT

Deutsch returned to MIT in 1946, joining his Los Alamos colleagues

and

Bruno Rossi Bruno Benedetto Rossi ( , ; 13 April 1905 – 21 November 1993) was an Italian-American experimental physicist. He made major contributions to particle physics and the study of cosmic rays. A 1927 graduate of the University of Bologna, he ...

. One of his students was Henry Kendall, who won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

for Physics in 1990. He also recruited

Samuel C. C. Ting Chao Chung Ting (, born January 27, 1936), also known by his English name Samuel, is a Taiwanese-American physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976 with Burton Richter for discovering the Subatomic particle, subatomic J/ψ par ...

to the faculty; Ting was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976. In 1951, Deutsch measured and confirmed the existence of

, a

bound state A bound state is a composite of two or more fundamental building blocks, such as particles, atoms, or bodies, that behaves as a single object and in which energy is required to split them. In quantum physics, a bound state is a quantum state of a ...

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

s and

positron The positron or antielectron is the particle with an electric charge of +1''elementary charge, e'', a Spin (physics), spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and the same Electron rest mass, mass as an electron. It is the antiparticle (antimatt ...

s whirling about each other. The properties of positronium were predicted by

Carl D. Anderson Carl David Anderson (September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was an American particle physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Victor Francis Hess for his discovery of the positron. Biography Anderson was born in New York City, ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

in 1932. The Martin Deutsch Student Award was created in 1987 to recognize outstanding experimental work by an MIT physics graduate student. Deutsch died in 2002 at his home in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

References

External links

Obituary of Martin Deutsch from the MIT News Office

MIT Physics Department website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, Martin 1917 births 2002 deaths Austrian Jews American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Jewish American scientists Scientists from Vienna 20th-century Austrian physicists 20th-century American physicists Manhattan Project people Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews Austrian emigrants to the United States

Early life

Work on the Manhattan Project

Career at MIT

See also

References

External links