52 Facts About James Franck

James Franck was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom".

James Franck completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick William University in Berlin, where he lectured and taught until 1918, having reached the position of professor extraordinarius.

James Franck served as a volunteer in the German Army during World War I James Franck was seriously injured in 1917 in a gas attack and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.

In 1920, James Franck became professor ordinarius of experimental physics and Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Gottingen.

James Franck promoted the careers of women in physics, notably Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer and Hilde Levi.

James Franck assisted Frederick Lindemann in helping dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas, before he left Germany in November 1933.

James Franck participated in the Manhattan Project during World War II as Director of the Chemistry Division of the Metallurgical Laboratory.

James Franck was the chairman of the Committee on Political and Social Problems regarding the atomic bomb, which is best known for the compilation of the Franck Report, which recommended that the atomic bombs not be used on the Japanese cities without warning.

James Franck was born in Hamburg, Germany, on 26 August 1882, into a Jewish family, the second child and first son of Jacob Franck, a banker, and his wife Rebecca nee Nachum Drucker.

James Franck had an older sister, Paula, and a younger brother, Robert Bernard.

James Franck's father was a devout and religious man, while his mother came from a family of rabbis.

James Franck attended lectures on law, but was far more interested in those on science.

James Franck attended mathematics lectures by Leo Konigsberger and Georg Cantor, but Heidelberg was not strong on the physical sciences, so he decided to go to the Frederick William University in Berlin.

At Berlin, James Franck attended lectures by Max Planck and Emil Warburg.

James Franck found this topic too complex, so he changed the focus of his thesis.

James Franck was called up on 1 October 1906 and joined the 1st Telegraph Battalion.

James Franck took up an assistantship at the Physikalische Verein in Frankfurt in 1907, but did not enjoy it, and soon returned to Frederick William University.

At a concert James Franck met Ingrid Josephson, a Swedish pianist.

James Franck was the sole author of some, but generally preferred working in collaboration with Eva von Bahr, Lise Meitner, Robert Pohl, Peter Pringsheim, Robert W Wood, Arthur Wehnelt or Wilhelm Westphal.

In 1914, James Franck teamed up with Hertz to perform an experiment to investigate fluorescence.

James Franck enlisted in the German Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

James Franck became a deputy officer, and then a lieutenant in 1915.

James Franck was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, on 30 March 1915, and the city of Hamburg awarded him the Hanseatic Cross on 11 January 1916.

James Franck returned to Berlin, where he joined Hertz, Westphal, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn and others at Haber's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, working on the development of gas masks.

James Franck was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, on 23 February 1918.

James Franck was discharged from the Army on 25 November 1918, soon after the war ended.

When Niels Bohr visited Berlin in 1920, Meitner and James Franck arranged for him to come to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to talk with the younger staff without the presence of the bonzen.

On 15 November 1920, James Franck became Professor of Experimental Physics and Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics, a fully tenured professor ordinarius.

James Franck was allowed two assistants, so he brought Hertha Sponer with him from Berlin to fill one of the positions.

James Franck refurbished the laboratory with the latest equipment using funds from his own pocket.

Under Born and James Franck, Gottingen was one of the world's great centres for physics between 1920 and 1933.

In supervising doctoral candidates, James Franck had to ensure that thesis topics were well-defined, and would teach the candidate how to conduct original research, while still staying within the limits of the candidate's ability, the laboratory's equipment and the institute's budget.

James Franck once commented that science was his God and nature was his religion.

James Franck did not require his daughters to attend religious instruction classes at school, and even let them have a decorated tree at Christmas; but he was proud of his Jewish heritage all the same.

James Franck was the first academic to resign in protest over the law.

James Franck assisted Frederick Lindemann in helping dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas, before he left Germany in November 1933.

James Franck needed a new collaborator, so he took on Hilde Levi, whose recent thesis had impressed him.

James Franck co-authored two papers with Levi on the subject, which he would return to over the following years.

James Franck decided to provide financial security for his children by dividing his Nobel Prize money between them.

James Franck placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute.

In 1935, James Franck moved to the United States, where he had accepted a professorship at Johns Hopkins University.

James Franck was concerned about his family members remaining in Germany, and needed money to help them emigrate.

James Franck therefore accepted an offer from the University of Chicago, where his work on photosynthesis had attracted interest, in 1938.

James Franck became a naturalised United States citizen on 21 July 1941, so he was not an enemy alien when the United States declared war on Germany on 11 December 1941.

James Franck married Hertha Sponer in a civil ceremony on 29 June 1946, his first wife, Ingrid, having died in 1942.

James Franck enjoyed talking about his problems, not so much to explain them to others as to satisfy his own mind.

James Franck's research followed an almost straight line, from his early studies of ion mobilities to his last work on photosynthesis; it was always the energy exchange between atoms or molecules that fascinated him.

James Franck was awarded the Max Planck medal of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft in 1951 and the Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work on photosynthesis in 1955.

James Franck became an honorary citizen of Gottingen in 1953, was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1944, and elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1964.

James Franck was an International Member of the American Philosophical Society.

James Franck died suddenly from a heart attack while visiting Gottingen on 21 May 1964, and was buried in Chicago with his first wife.

James Franck's papers are in the University of Chicago Library.