Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber
Encyclopedia
Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911-1998) was a German-born Jewish-American nuclear physicist. She earned her PhD. from the University of Munich, and though her family suffered during The Holocaust
, Gertrude was able to escape to London and later to the United States. Her research during World War II
was classified, and not published until 1946. She and her husband, Maurice Goldhaber
, spent most of their post-war careers at Brookhaven National Laboratory
.
, Germany
on July 14, 1911. She attended public school, and it is there that she developed an interested in science. Unusual for the time, her parents supported this interest — possibly because her father had wanted to be a chemist before being forced to support his family with the death of his father. Goldhaber's early life was filled with hardship. During World War I
she recalled having to eat bread made partially of sawdust
, and her family suffered through the hyperinflation
of postwar Germany
, although it did not prevent her from attending the University of Munich.
. Although her family had supported her early interested in science, her father encouraged her to study law at Munich. In defense of her decision to study physics Gertrude told her father, “I’m not interested in the law. I want to understand what the world is made of.”
As was usual for students at the time, Gertrude spent semesters at various other universities including the University of Freiburg
, the University of Zurich
, and the University of Berlin
(where she would meet her future husband) before returning to the University of Munich. Upon returning to Munich Gertrude took up a position with Walter Gerlach
to perform her thesis research. In her thesis Gertrude studied the effects of stress on magnetization. She graduated in 1935 and published her thesis in 1936.
With the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, Gertrude faced increasing difficulties in Germany because of her Jewish heritage. During this time her father was arrested and jailed, and although he and his wife were able to flee to Switzerland
upon his release, they later returned to Germany and perished in the The Holocaust
. Gertrude remained in Germany until the completion of her Ph.D.
in 1935, at which point she fled to London
. Although Gertrude's parents did not escape the Nazis her sister Liselotte did.
. Gertrude was able to find work in George Paget Thomson
's lab working on electron diffraction
. Although she had a post-doctoral position with Thomson, Gertrude realized that she was not going to be offered a real position with him and so looked for other work.
In 1939 Gertrude married Maurice Goldhaber
. She then moved to Urbana
, Illinois
to join him at the University of Illinois
. The state of Illinois had strict anti-nepotism
laws at the time which prevented Gertrude Goldhaber from being hired by the university because her husband already had a position there. Gertrude was granted neither salary nor laboratory space, and worked in Maurice's lab as an unpaid assistant. Since Maurice's lab was only set up for nuclear physics
research, Gertrude Goldhaber took up research in that field as well. During this time Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber had two sons: Alfred and Michael. Goldhaber was eventually given a soft-money line by the department to help support her research.
Goldhaber studied neutron-proton and neutron-nucleus reaction cross sections
in 1941, and gamma radiation emission and absorption by nuclei
in 1942. Around this time she also observed that spontaneous nuclear fission is accompanied by the release of neutrons — a result that had be theorized earlier but had yet to be shown. Her work with spontaneous nuclear fission was classified
during the war
, and was only published after the war ended in 1946.
Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber moved from Illinois to Long Island
where they both joined the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory
. At the laboratory she founded a series of monthly lectures known as the Brookhaven Lecture Series which is still continuing .
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, Gertrude was able to escape to London and later to the United States. Her research during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was classified, and not published until 1946. She and her husband, Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber was an Austrian-born American physicist, who in 1957 established that neutrinos have negative helicity.-Early Life and Childhood:...
, spent most of their post-war careers at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...
.
Early life
Gertrude Scharff was born in MannheimMannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
, Germany
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...
on July 14, 1911. She attended public school, and it is there that she developed an interested in science. Unusual for the time, her parents supported this interest — possibly because her father had wanted to be a chemist before being forced to support his family with the death of his father. Goldhaber's early life was filled with hardship. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
she recalled having to eat bread made partially of sawdust
Sawdust
Sawdust is a by-product of cutting lumber with a saw, composed of fine particles of wood. It can present a hazard in manufacturing industries, especially in terms of its flammability....
, and her family suffered through the hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or out of control. While the real values of the specific economic items generally stay the same in terms of relatively stable foreign currencies, in hyperinflationary conditions the general price level within a specific economy increases...
of postwar Germany
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, although it did not prevent her from attending the University of Munich.
Education
At the University of Munich Gertrude quickly developed an interest in physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. Although her family had supported her early interested in science, her father encouraged her to study law at Munich. In defense of her decision to study physics Gertrude told her father, “I’m not interested in the law. I want to understand what the world is made of.”
As was usual for students at the time, Gertrude spent semesters at various other universities including the University of Freiburg
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...
, the University of Zurich
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
, and the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
(where she would meet her future husband) before returning to the University of Munich. Upon returning to Munich Gertrude took up a position with Walter Gerlach
Walter Gerlach
Walter Gerlach was a German physicist who co-discovered spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern-Gerlach effect.-Education:Gerlach was born in Biebrich, Hessen-Nassau....
to perform her thesis research. In her thesis Gertrude studied the effects of stress on magnetization. She graduated in 1935 and published her thesis in 1936.
With the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, Gertrude faced increasing difficulties in Germany because of her Jewish heritage. During this time her father was arrested and jailed, and although he and his wife were able to flee to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
upon his release, they later returned to Germany and perished in the The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Gertrude remained in Germany until the completion of her 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 1935, at which point she fled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Although Gertrude's parents did not escape the Nazis her sister Liselotte did.
Career
For the first six months of her stay in London, Gertrude lived off the money she made from selling her Leica camera, as well as money earned from translating German to English. Gertrude found that having a Ph.D. was a disadvantage as there were more spots for refugee students than for refugee scientists. She wrote to 35 other refugee scientists looking for work, and was told by all but one that there were already too many refugee scientists already working. Only Maurice Goldhaber wrote back offering any hope, stating that he thought she might be able to find work in CambridgeCambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. Gertrude was able to find work in George Paget Thomson
George Paget Thomson
Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS was an English physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognised for his discovery with Clinton Davisson of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction.-Biography:...
's lab working on electron diffraction
Electron diffraction
Electron diffraction refers to the wave nature of electrons. However, from a technical or practical point of view, it may be regarded as a technique used to study matter by firing electrons at a sample and observing the resulting interference pattern...
. Although she had a post-doctoral position with Thomson, Gertrude realized that she was not going to be offered a real position with him and so looked for other work.
In 1939 Gertrude married Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber was an Austrian-born American physicist, who in 1957 established that neutrinos have negative helicity.-Early Life and Childhood:...
. She then moved to Urbana
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
to join him at the University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. The state of Illinois had strict anti-nepotism
Nepotism
Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....
laws at the time which prevented Gertrude Goldhaber from being hired by the university because her husband already had a position there. Gertrude was granted neither salary nor laboratory space, and worked in Maurice's lab as an unpaid assistant. Since Maurice's lab was only set up for nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
research, Gertrude Goldhaber took up research in that field as well. During this time Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber had two sons: Alfred and Michael. Goldhaber was eventually given a soft-money line by the department to help support her research.
Goldhaber studied neutron-proton and neutron-nucleus reaction cross sections
Cross section (physics)
A cross section is the effective area which governs the probability of some scattering or absorption event. Together with particle density and path length, it can be used to predict the total scattering probability via the Beer-Lambert law....
in 1941, and gamma radiation emission and absorption by nuclei
Atomic nucleus
The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...
in 1942. Around this time she also observed that spontaneous nuclear fission is accompanied by the release of neutrons — a result that had be theorized earlier but had yet to be shown. Her work with spontaneous nuclear fission was classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
during the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and was only published after the war ended in 1946.
Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber moved from Illinois to Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
where they both joined the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...
. At the laboratory she founded a series of monthly lectures known as the Brookhaven Lecture Series which is still continuing .
Honors
- 1947 — elected as a follow of the American Physical SocietyAmerican Physical SocietyThe American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
- 1972 — elected to National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
(the third female physicist to be so honored) - 1982 — Long Island Achiever’s Award in Science
- 1984 — Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar
- 1990 — Outstanding Woman Scientist Award from the New York Chapter of the Association for Women Scientists