Born: 15-Apr-1874
Birthplace: Schickenhof, Bavaria, Germany
Died: 21-Jun-1957
Location of death: Traunstein, Germany
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Religion: Christian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist

Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Discovered the Stark Effect

German physicist Johannes Stark studied chemical valency, electric currents in gases, and spectroscopic analysis. In 1905 he reported a Doppler effect in the radiation released by rapidly-moving charged particles, and in 1919 he detailed the splitting of spectral lines in an electric field, a phenomenon now termed the Stark effect. He won the Nobel Prize in the same year, but quit physics in 1922 to start his own porcelain-making business, which soon failed. He subsequently tried to re-enter academia, but a dour personality and his increasing denunciation of "Jewish physics" (i.e., Albert Einstein) make him unpopular, as even in the anti-Semitic environment of pre-Nazi Germany it was clear to most leading physicists that Einstein's theories were correct. He was rejected for membership in the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, but became President of the government-aligned Berlin Institute of Physics and Technology and used this position to further denounce quantum physics and suppress Jews in German science.

Wife: Luise Uepler (five children)

    High School: Regensburg Gymnasium, Regensburg, Germany (1894)
    University: PhD, University of Munich (1897)
    Teacher: Physics, University of Munich (1897-1900)
    Lecturer: Physics, University of Göttingen (1900-06)
    Professor: Technische Hochschule, Hannover (1906-09)
    Professor: Technische Hochschule, Aachen (1909-17)
    Professor: University of Greifswald (1917-20)
    Professor: University of Würzburg (1920-22)

    Ferenc Ferdinánd Baumgarten Prize 1910
    Matteucci Medal 1915
    Nobel Prize for Physics 1919
    Yearbook of Radioactivity and Electronics Founder & Editor (1904-13)
    Berlin Institute of Physics and Technology President (1933-39)
    Lunar Crater Stark (25.5°S 134.6°E, 49 km. diameter)
    German Ancestry

Author of books:
Die Elektrizität im Gasen (Electricity in Gases) (1902, non-fiction)
Die Elektrizität im Chemischen Atom (Electricity in the Chemical Atom) (1902, non-fiction)
Die Elementare Strahlung (The Elementary Radiation) (1911, non-fiction)
Anregung der Spektren (Suggestions of the Spectrum) (1927, non-fiction)
Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche (Nazism and the Catholic Church) (1931, non-fiction)
Fortschritte und Probleme der Atomforschung (Problems and Progress in Nuclear Research) (1931, non-fiction)
Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft (Nazism and Science) (1934, non-fiction)

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