- Person
- James Franck
- Lived
- 1882–1964
- Field
- Atomic physics
- From
- German-American
The story
By 1933 James Franck was one of the most respected scientists in Germany. Born into a Jewish family in Hamburg in 1882, he had shared the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics and since 1920 had directed the Second Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Göttingen, which he and Max Born had made a world centre of quantum physics. He had also served in the German army in the First World War, been seriously injured in a gas attack and won the Iron Cross, First Class.
After the Nazi Party won power in the election of 5 March 1933, the new government passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service the following month. It removed Jews and political opponents from public posts, including professorships. As a war veteran, Franck was legally exempt and could have kept his job.
He refused to accept a privilege denied to his colleagues. On 17 April 1933 he submitted his resignation, the first academic to resign in protest over the law. Newspapers around the world reported it, although no government or university protested on behalf of those dismissed.
The Nobel Foundation’s biography describes him as one of the first who openly demonstrated against the racial laws in Germany. Franck was a secular Jew who once said science was his god and nature his religion, but he was proud of his Jewish heritage and would not stand apart from those being persecuted.
Before leaving Germany in November 1933, he used his remaining months to help dismissed Jewish scientists find work abroad. He then spent a year at Niels Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen and moved to the United States, where he taught at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. He never abandoned his ties to Göttingen: in 1953 the town made him an honorary citizen, and he died there in 1964 while on a visit. The University of Chicago named its James Franck Institute after him in 1967.
Why it matters
Franck's public stand was one of the earliest acts of conscience by a leading German scientist against Nazi persecution, and it inspired others abroad to help refugees.
About James Franck
Nobel physicist whose electron-collision experiment proved atoms have quantised energy levels; he resigned in protest in 1933 and later led the Franck Report against a surprise atomic attack.
More about James Franck
- James Franck championed women in physicsJames Franck actively advanced the careers of women physicists, notably Hertha Sponer and Hilde Levi, at a time when few women held research posts.
- The Franck–Condon principle explains how molecules glowIn 1925 James Franck proposed the mechanism, later developed by Edward Condon into the Franck–Condon principle, that governs how molecules absorb and emit light.
- James Franck made Göttingen a world centre of physicsFrom 1920 to 1933 James Franck and Max Born made Göttingen a world centre of quantum physics, training scientists such as Blackett, Condon and Oppenheimer.
- James Franck proved atoms take energy in fixed stepsIn 1914 James Franck and Gustav Hertz showed electrons lose exactly 4.9 electronvolts to mercury atoms, proving atomic energy is quantised; they won the 1925 Nobel Prize.
- James Franck devoted his later years to photosynthesisFrom the 1930s James Franck studied how plants turn light into chemical energy, heading Chicago's Photosynthesis Research Group until 1956.
- The Franck Report urged a warning before the bombOn 11 June 1945 the Franck Report urged that the atomic bomb be demonstrated in an uninhabited place rather than used on Japanese cities without warning.
- Franck helped dismissed Jewish scientists find workBefore leaving Germany in November 1933, James Franck helped Frederick Lindemann of Oxford find posts abroad for Jewish scientists dismissed by the Nazis.
Sources
- James Franck Wikipedia
- James Franck – Biographical NobelPrize.org
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.