Erich Regener

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erich Regener
Erich Regener, May 1929
Erich Regener, May 1929
Born 12th November 1881
Schleusenar, near Bromberg
Died 27th February 1955
Stuttgart
Citizenship German
Nationality German
Fields Experimental Physicist
Institutions Stuttgart Technische Hochschule
Alma mater University of Berlin
Doctoral advisor Emil Warburg
Doctoral students Hans Hellmann
Known for The design and construction of instruments to measure cosmic ray intensity at various altitudes.


Erich Rudolf Alexander Regener (12th November 1881–27th February 1955) was a German physicist known primarily for the design and construction of instruments to measure cosmic ray intensity at various altitudes.

Regener was born in Schleusenar near Bromberg, West Prussia. He studied physics from 1900 to 1905 at the University of Berlin under Emil Warburg and from 1909 worked with Heinrich Rubens. In 1911 he became professor of experimental physics and meteorology at the Agricultural University of Berlin. In 1920 he became the professor in experimental physics at Stuttgart Technische Hochschule working alongside the theoretical physicist Paul Peter Ewald. During this time, he developed instruments to measure cosmic rays at various altitudes. Bruno Rossi wrote of this period that "In the late 1920s and early 1930s the technique of self-recording electroscopes carried by balloons into the highest layers of the atmosphere or sunk to great depths under water was brought to an unprecedented degree of perfection by the German physicist Erich Regener and his group. To these scientists we owe some of the most accurate measurements ever made of cosmic-ray ionization as a function of altitude and depth."[1] In 1937 he was forced into "provisional retirement" by the National Socialists. He then founded the private "Research Laboratory for the Physics of the Stratosphere" in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, which later became a part of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. In 1939 he was invited to work at the German Army-Air Force rocket research station in Peenemunde where he developed a spectograph protected by a steel casing. This instument, later called the Regener-Tonne was the first scientific payload for a rocket designed to reach high altitude. After a successful test flight the project was cancelled in September 1944 and the rockets were used as long-range missiles against Britain. In 1948 Regener was appointed the first Vice president of the Max Planck Society. He was also cofounder of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research with Walter Dieminger and was instrumental in attracting physicists back to post-war Germany.

He was the father of Victor H Regener [1] and Erika Regener. Erika Regener later married one of Erich Regener's students, Henri Daniel Rathgeber.

[edit] Publications

  • Über die chemische Wirkung kurzwelliger Strahlung auf gasförmige Körper, Dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, 12. Aug. 1905
  • Meyer, E; and Erich Regener (1908). "Concerning Oscillation of Radioactive Radiation and a Method for Determining the Electric Element Quantum" (in German). Annalen Der Physik 25 (4): 757-774. 
  • Regener, Erich (1909). "On Counting the Alpha Particles by Scintillation and on the Size of the Electrical Elementary Quantum" (in German). Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften: 948-965. 
  • Regener, Erich (1913). "The New Attempts of C T R Wilson for the Visualisation of the Tracks of Radiation Rays" (in German). Naturwissenschaften: 299-301. 
  • Über Kathoden-, Röntgen- und Radiumstrahlen, Rede, geh. in d. Kgl. Landwirtschaftlichen Hochschule zu Berlin am 26. Jan. 1915. Berlin ; Wien : Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1915
  • Über die Ursache, welche bei den Versuchen von Hrn. F. Ehrenhaft die Existenz eines Subelektrons vortäuscht, Berlin 1920 (Sitzungsbericht d. Preuss. Akademie d. Wiss. Phys.-math. Kl. 1920)
  • Regener, Erich; and Victor H. Regener (1934). "Aufnahmen des ultravioletten Sonnenspektums in der Stratosphäre und vertikale Ozonverteilun" (in German). Phys. Z. 35: 788-793. 
  • Regener, Erich; and George Pfotzer (November 1935). "Vertical Intensity of Cosmic Rays by Threefold Coincidences in the Stratosphere". Nature 136: 718-719. 


  • Über Ballone mit großer Steiggeschwindigkeit, Thermographen von geringer Trägheit, Quarzbarographen und über die Kondensation und Sublimation von Wasserdampfes bei tiefen Temperaturen, München; Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1941 (Schriften d. Dt. Akademie d. Luftfahrtforschung 37)
  • Aufbau und Zusammensetzung der Stratosphäre, München; Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1941 (Schriften der Deutschen Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung 46)
  • Optische Interferenzen an dünnen, bei 190 °C kondensierten Eisschichten, 1954

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ *Rossi, Bruno (1964). Cosmic Rays. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 536242. 

[edit] References

  • Blackett, P.M.S. (25th June 1955). "Prof. E. Regener". Nature 175: 1107-1108. 
  • Paetzold, H. K. et al., Erich Regener als Wegbereiter der extraterrestrischen Physik, in: H. Birett et al. (Hrsg.), Zur Geschichte der Geophysik, Springer, Berlin 1974, pp.167–188.
  • Priesner, C., "Regener, Erich Rudolph Alexander" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie. Bd. 21, Berlin 2003, pp. 258–260.
Languages