41 Facts About Peter Debye

Peter Joseph William Debye was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.

Peter Debye published his first paper, a mathematically elegant solution of a problem involving eddy currents, in 1907.

In 1911, when Albert Einstein took an appointment as a professor at Prague, Bohemia, Peter Debye took his old professorship at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Peter Debye was described as a martinet when it came to scientific principles, yet he was always approachable and made time for his students.

Peter Debye was an avid trout fisherman and gardener, collector of cacti, and was "always known to enjoy a nice cigar".

Mathilde would soon change her citizenship and in 1913, Peter Debye married Mathilde Alberer.

Peter Debye would enjoy working in his rose garden with Mathilde Alberer late into his years.

Peter became a physicist and collaborated with Debye in some of his researches, and had a son who was a chemist.

Peter Debye was a faithful Catholic who insisted his family go to church.

Also in 1923, Peter Debye developed a theory to explain the Compton effect, the shifting of the frequency of X-rays when they interact with electrons.

From 1934 to 1939 Peter Debye was director of the physics section of the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin.

In 1939 Peter Debye traveled to the United States to deliver the Baker Lectures at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Unlike the European phase of his life, where he moved from city to city every few years, in the United States Peter Debye remained at Cornell for the remainder of his career.

Peter Debye retired in 1952, but continued research until his death.

Peter Debye is buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery.

Rispens discovered documents that, as he believed, were new and proved that, during his directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Peter Debye was actively involved in cleansing German science institutions of Jewish and other "non-Aryan elements".

Rispens records that on December 9,1938, Peter Debye wrote in his capacity as chairman of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft to all the members of the DPG:.

Many biographies published before Rispens' work, state that Peter Debye moved to the US because he refused to accept German citizenship forced on to him by the Nazis.

Peter Debye planned his departure from Germany during a visit with his mother in Maastricht in late 1939, boarded a ship in Genoa in January 1940 and arrived in New York in early February 1940.

Peter Debye immediately sought a permanent position in the US and accepted such an offer from Cornell in June 1940.

Peter Debye was able to get his wife out of Germany and to the US by December 1940.

Further, Rispens alleges that Albert Einstein in the first half of 1940 tried to prevent Peter Debye from being appointed in the United States at Cornell.

Einstein allegedly wrote to his American colleagues: "I know from a reliable source that Peter Debye is still in close contact with the German leaders" and, according to Rispens, called upon his colleagues to do "what they consider their duty as American citizens".

Thereupon Peter Debye wrote his well-known 1940 letter to Einstein to which Einstein answered.

Rispens alleges that Peter Debye sent a telegram to Berlin on 23 June 1941 informing his previous employers that he was able and willing to resume his responsibilities at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, presumably to maintain his leave of absence and keep the Berlin house and wages available for his daughter.

In summer 1941, Peter Debye filed his intent to become a US citizen and was quickly recruited in the US to participate in Allied War research.

Peter Debye recalls that his mother urged him to stay in the US in the event of war.

Peter Debye's son had come to the US on a planned 2-month vacation during the summer of 1939 and never returned to Germany because war broke out.

Peter Debye puts forward the important argument that when Debye in 1950 received the Max Planck medal of the DPG, nobody objected, not even the known opponent of the national socialists Max von Laue, who would have been in a position to object.

None of them protested against Peter Debye's receiving the highest German scientific distinction.

In May 2006, the Dutch Nobel Prize winner Martinus Veltman who had written the foreword to the Rispen book, renounced the book's description of Peter Debye, withdrew his foreword, and asked the Board of Directors of Utrecht University to rescind their decision to rename the Debye Institute.

In June 2006, it was reported that the scientific director of the Peter Debye Institute had been reprimanded by the board of directors of the University of Utrecht for a new publication on Peter Debye's war years on the grounds that it was too personally biased with respect to the Institute's naming dispute.

The book was banned by the University of Utrecht and both Directors of the Peter Debye Institute were forbidden to have any further contact with the press.

The report states that, by his contemporaries, Peter Debye was considered an opportunist by some and as a man of highest character by others.

The report asserts that Peter Debye was not coerced by the Nazis into writing the infamous DPG Heil Hitler letter and that he did not follow the lead of other societies in doing so but, rather, other societies followed his lead.

The NIOD report concludes that Peter Debye felt obliged to send the letter and that it was, for him, simply a confirmation of an existing situation.

In general, Peter Debye developed a survival method of ambiguity, that "could pull the wool over people's eyes".

The Commission concluded that Peter Debye was not a party member, was not an anti-semite, did not further Nazi propaganda, did not cooperate with the Nazi war machine, was not a collaborator, and yet was not a resistance hero.

Peter Debye was a rather pragmatic, flexible, and brilliant scientist, idealistic with respect to the pursuit of science, but only superficially oriented in politics.

Reiding discovered that Peter Debye was befriended by the well-documented spy Paul Rosbaud.

Rosbaud was well-connected with many people and Peter Debye, while he was a friend of Rosbaud's, seems to have felt regard for geologist Friedrich Drescher-Kaden, an ardent Nazi.