James Franck was a famous German physicist who, along with Gustav Hertz, shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925. He did a lot for the field of physics, both on his own and with a group. After getting his Ph.D. in Physics, he spent a short time in the military. He then moved to Germany to work as a lecturer and do research. During his career, he worked with a number of universities in Germany and the United States, where he taught and advised students. James Franck wrote several articles about his research, either on his own or with other people. He had worked with Lise Meitner, Robert Pohl, Gustav Hertz, and other well-known physicists. The Franck–Condon principle (Franck, 1926) and the Franck–Hertz experiment were two of his most important contributions to science (1914-1918). In 1926, he and Gustav Hertz won the Nobel Prize in Physics for “discovering the laws that govern what happens when an electron hits an atom.”
Early years and childhood
James Franck was born on August 26, 1882, to Jacob Franck, a banker, and Rebecca Drucker, whose father was Nachum Drucker. Paula was his older sister, and Robert Bernard was his younger brother.
He went to elementary school in Hamburg, and in 1891, he went to Wilhelm-Gymnasium, where he finished his education.
In 1901, he went to Heidelberg University to study law and economics. But he became interested in science and soon started studying physics and chemistry instead. At that time, the university’s reputation in physical sciences was not very good, so he decided to go to Berlin to continue his education.
He went to school at Berlin’s Frederick William University, where he had the chance to learn from Emil Warburg and Max Planck. He used a method that physicist Ernest Rutherford came up with to study how ions move as his thesis for his Ph.D. under Emil Warburg.
After he finished his thesis, he was told he had to go to the military. He became a member of the 1st Telegraph Battalion in 1906. But he had an accident while riding a horse and was soon taken out of service because he was deemed unfit for duty.
James Franck’s Career
In 1907, he started his career in science by working as an assistant for the Physikalische Verein in Frankfurt. But he didn’t feel at home there, so he quit his job and went back to Frederick William University.
In Germany at the time, you also needed a habilitation or “venialegendi” in addition to a doctorate degree. For this, he started to work on Physics problems that hadn’t been solved yet. By 1914, he had written or co-written about 34 articles. He was given his habilitation in 1911.
He had worked with famous physicists like Robert Pohl, Robert W. Wood, Willheim Westphal, Lise Meitner, and Arthur Wehnelt to write articles. He and Gustav Hertz wrote about 19 articles together.
He worked with Gustav Hertz to study fluorescence in 1914. The results of their tests showed that Einstein’s photoelectric effect and Planck’s relation were right. In 1918, they worked on their final paper together.
The experiment also helped prove that Niels Bohr’s model of an atom was correct and showed how kinetic energy can be changed into light energy in a quantized way. The experiment also showed that an atom’s light spectrum is an important part of its structure.
When World War I broke out in 1914, he joined the Russian Army and was sent to the Western Front later that same year. He became a lieutenant by 1915. During his time in the military, he kept writing research papers with Gustav Hertz. In 1916, he got a job at Frederick William University as an assistant professor. When the war ended in 1918, he was let out of the service.
He got a job at Fritz Haber’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry when the war was over. The chance gave him the freedom to keep researching however he wanted. His first job was doing research on excited electrons in atoms. This research was important in the later development of the word “laser.”
He and his new team came up with the word “metastable” to describe a system that stays in a configuration other than its state of least energy for a long time.
James Franck was put in charge of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Gottingen in 1920. He was also given the title of Professor of Experimental Physics. Between 1920 and 1933, physicists Max Born and James Franck helped the university grow into one of the most important places for quantum physics.
When he taught at the University of Gottingen, he showed that he was a good teacher. During that time, he taught doctoral students like Arthur R. von Hippel, Hans Kopfermann, Heinrich Kuhn, Fritz Houtermans, and Wilhelm Hanle, all of whom later became well-known in their fields.
During this time, he worked on a rule that explains the intensity of vibronic transitions in spectroscopy and quantum chemistry. This idea became known as the “Franck–Condon principle” over time.
When the Nazis took power in Germany, he quit his job at the university to protest the way they treated his Jewish colleagues because of their race. He then moved his family to the United States. As a Speyer professor, he was asked to give talks at Johns Hopkins University. Later, he went to Denmark to be a guest lecturer there for a year.
In 1935, he went back to the United States and was hired as a physics professor at John Hopkins University. He worked there until 1938 when he got a job as a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Chicago.
During World War II, he was in charge of the Chemistry Department at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the head of the Metallurgical Laboratory’s Committee on Political and Social Problems with the Atomic Bomb.
The committee, which he led, wrote a petition saying that atomic bombs shouldn’t be dropped on Japan without first warning the country. This was called the report by Franck. But the interim committee made a different choice.
In 1947, the University of Chicago made him a “professor emeritus.” He worked at the university as the head of the Photosynthesis Research Group until 1956.
Awards & Achievements
In 1915, the Kingdom of Prussia gave him a military award called the Iron Cross, 2nd Class. He was given the Iron Cross, 1st Class, in 1918.
In 1916, the three city-states of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck gave him the Hanseatic Cross.
In 1925, James Franck and Gustav Hertz were both given the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1951, the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft gave him the Max Planck medal.
In 1955, he was given the Rumford Prize.
In 1964, the Royal Society made him a Fellow.
Personal History and Legacies
On December 23, 1907, James Franck married the Swedish pianist Ingrid Josephson. They had two daughters: Dagmar, born in 1909, and Elisabeth, born in 1911. (born in 1912). Ingrid died in Chicago at the age of 59 in 1942.
On June 29, 1946, he got married to the German physicist and chemist Hertha Sponer.
On May 21, 1964, while he was in Gottingen, he had a heart attack and died. He died when he was 81 years old.
Estimated Net worth
American actor, director, screenwriter, film producer, artist, and poet James Franco has a $30 million net worth. The movie 127 Hours (2010), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, is one of his most well-liked works.