Emil Wiechert
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
geophysicist who presented the first verifiable model of a layered structure of the Earth
Structure of the Earth
The interior structure of the Earth, similar to the outer, is layered. These layers can be defined by either their chemical or their rheological properties. The Earth has an outer silicate solid crust, a highly viscous mantle, a liquid outer core that is much less viscous than the mantle, and a...
.
Life
Wiechert was born in Tilsit, Province of PrussiaProvince of Prussia
The Province of Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1829-1878 created out of the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia....
, the son of Johann and Emilie Wiechart. After his father died, Emilie moved to Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
so that Emil could study at the University of Königsberg
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
. Owing to economic difficulties he took longer than normal to complete his education, but he was awarded a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1889.
The following year he became qualified to lecture in physics at university level in Germany. He became an assistant to Paul Volkmann at Königsberg University, teaching there, and during the next seven years performed research in physics until 1897, when he received a call to Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
. He started as an assistant of Woldemar Voigt, in physics, and In 1898 he was named professor of geophysics and Director of the Geophysical Laboratory at Göttingen. He became a full professor at the institution in 1905, and would remain there for the remainder of his career. He married Helene Ziebarth, a lawyer's daughter, in 1908, but the couple did not have children.
During his career he made important contributions to the discovery of the electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
, the physics of cathode ray
Cathode ray
Cathode rays are streams of electrons observed in vacuum tubes. If an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes and a voltage is applied, the glass opposite of the negative electrode is observed to glow, due to electrons emitted from and travelling perpendicular to the cathode Cathode...
s, and Liénard-Wiechert Potentials
Liénard-Wiechert Potentials
Liénard-Wiechert potentials describe the classical electromagnetic effect of a moving electric point charge in terms of a vector potential and a scalar potential...
. He was the first geophysicist to present a verifiable model of the Earth's interior as a series of shells. He wrote a number of scientific papers, including a pioneering work on how
seismic wave
Seismic wave
Seismic waves are waves of energy that travel through the earth, and are a result of an earthquake, explosion, or a volcano that imparts low-frequency acoustic energy. Many other natural and anthropogenic sources create low amplitude waves commonly referred to as ambient vibrations. Seismic waves...
s propagate through the Earth. He also devised an improved seismograph and created the field of geological prospecting using small, artificially-created earthquakes.Wiechert was also interested in theoretical physics, such in the theory by Albert Einstein. He discussed the role of the ether, and he has discussed this questions with Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and others. Wilfried Schröder has been published the scientific correspondence between Lorenz and Wiechert, Arnold Sommerfeld and Wiechert and presents a biography of Wiechert (Bremen, Science Edsition, 2000)
Toward the end of his life he became increasingly deaf and would suffer from a number of ailments before he finally died in Göttingen.
Awards and honors
- Corresponding member of the Berlin Academy of Science, 1912.
- The crater WiechertWiechert (crater)Wiechert is a lunar crater that is located in the southern region of the Moon's far side. It lies to the southeast of the huge walled plain Schrödinger, less than 170 km from the southern pole....
on the MoonMoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
is named after him.