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55-507: Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld , ForMemRS ( German: [ˈzɔmɐˌfɛlt] ; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics , and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretical physics. He served as doctoral supervisor and postdoc supervisor to seven Nobel Prize winners and supervised at least 30 other famous physicists and chemists. Only J. J. Thomson's record of mentorship offers

110-612: A Potsdam builder. His father Franz Sommerfeld (1820–1906) was a physician from a leading family in Königsberg , where Arnold's grandfather had resettled from the hinterland in 1822 for a career as Court Postal Secretary in the service of the Kingdom of Prussia . Sommerfeld was baptized a Christian in his family's Prussian Evangelical Protestant Church , and although not religious, he would never renounce his Christian faith . Sommerfeld studied mathematics and physical sciences at

165-1617: A "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of

220-708: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote

275-829: A colonel in the hussars . In October 1893, Sommerfeld went to the University of Göttingen , which was the center of mathematics in Germany. There, he became assistant to Theodor Liebisch , at the Mineralogical Institute, through a fortunate personal contact – Liebisch had been a professor at the University of Königsberg and a friend of the Sommerfeld family. In September 1894, Sommerfeld became Felix Klein 's assistant, which included taking comprehensive notes during Klein's lectures and writing them up for

330-453: A comparable list of high-achieving students. He introduced the second quantum number , azimuthal quantum number , and the third quantum number, magnetic quantum number . He also introduced the fine-structure constant and pioneered X-ray wave theory. Sommerfeld was born in 1868 to a family with deep ancestral roots in Prussia . His mother Cäcilie Matthias (1839–1902) was the daughter of

385-1044: A power and merge into a pacified Europe." Sommerfeld was awarded many honors in his lifetime, such as the Lorentz Medal , the Max-Planck Medal , the Oersted Medal , election to the Royal Society of London , the United States National Academy of Sciences , Academy of Sciences of the USSR , the Indian Academy of Sciences , and other academies including those in Berlin, Munich, Göttingen, and Vienna, as well as having conferred on him numerous honorary degrees from universities including Rostock, Aachen, Calcutta, and Athens. He

440-737: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and

495-488: Is more pasture land. Scattered in and around Clausthal-Zellerfeld are numerous dams and streams belonging to the Upper Harz Water Regale . The depression between Clausthal and Zellerfeld marks a natural "borderline". Southwest extends the "Small Clausthal valley". Clausthal-Zellerfeld originally consisted of two towns which were merged in 1924 to form an administrative unit. Clausthal is well known for

550-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which

605-566: Is now suffering from the general decline in shops. The development of the Clausthal University of Technology is of great importance for the mining town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld, as it increases the attractiveness and attraction of the location for innovative investments. The development of the TU Clausthal and the cooperation between local companies and science is a decisive advantage for the business location. In addition to

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660-616: The Albertina University of his native city, Königsberg , East Prussia . His dissertation advisor was the mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann , and he also benefited from classes with mathematicians Adolf Hurwitz and David Hilbert and physicist Emil Wiechert . His participation in the student fraternity Deutsche Burschenschaft resulted in a dueling scar on his face. He received his Ph.D. on 24 October 1891 (age 22). After receiving his doctorate, Sommerfeld remained at Königsberg to work on his teaching diploma. He passed

715-623: The Langelsheim–Altenau (Oberharz) railway ran trains from the station to Altenau and Langelsheim . Today the public transport is served by several bus lines that travel to Goslar , Osterode am Harz , Altenau and Sankt Andreasberg . In addition to the primary and secondary school facilities, Clausthal-Zellerfeld also houses the School of Economics and Technology and the Clausthal University of Technology . The facilities of

770-602: The Sommerfeld–Wilson quantization rules (1915), a generalization of Bohr's atomic model , introduction of the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant (1916), co-discovery with Walther Kossel of the Sommerfeld–Kossel displacement law (1919), and publishing Atombau und Spektrallinien (1919), which became the "bible" of atomic theory for the new generation of physicists who developed atomic and quantum physics. The book underwent 4 editions from 1919 to 1924, to incorporate

825-573: The University of Wisconsin–Madison . In 1927 Sommerfeld applied Fermi–Dirac statistics to the Drude model of electrons in metals – a model put forth by Paul Drude . The new theory solved many of the problems predicting thermal properties the original model had and became known as the Drude–Sommerfeld model . In 1928/1929, Sommerfeld traveled globally, with major stops in India, China, Japan, and

880-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to

935-640: The "discovery and development of talents". Albert Einstein told Sommerfeld: "What I especially admire about you is that you have, as it were, pounded out of the soil such a large number of young talents." Sommerfeld's style as a professor and institute director did not put distance between him and his colleagues and students. He invited collaboration from them, and their ideas often influenced his own views in physics. He entertained them in his home and met with them in cafes before and after seminars and colloquia. Sommerfeld owned an alpine ski hut to which students were often invited for discussions of physics as demanding as

990-592: The Mathematics Reading Room, as well as managing the reading room. Sommerfeld's Habilitationsschrift was completed under Klein, in 1895, which allowed Sommerfeld to become a Privatdozent at Göttingen. As a Privatdozent, Sommerfeld lectured on a wide range of mathematical and mathematical physics topics. His lectures on partial differential equations were first offered at Göttingen, and they evolved over his teaching career to become Volume VI of his textbook series Lectures on Theoretical Physics , under

1045-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of

1100-663: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to

1155-478: The United States. Sommerfeld was a great theoretician. Besides his invaluable contributions to quantum theory, he worked in other fields of physics, such as the classical theory of electromagnetism. For example, he proposed a solution to the problem of a radiating hertzian dipole over a conducting earth, which over the years led to many applications. His Sommerfeld identity and Sommerfeld integrals are to

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1210-400: The University of Munich, Sommerfeld's students Ludwig Hopf and Werner Heisenberg would write their Ph.D. theses on this topic. For his contributions to the understanding of journal bearing lubrication during his time at Aachen, he was named as one of the 23 "Men of Tribology" by Duncan Dowson . From 1906, Sommerfeld established himself as ordinarius professor of physics and director of

1265-457: The appointment amounted to the "destruction of the Munich theoretical physics tradition". As for Sommerfeld's once patriotic views, he wrote to Einstein shortly after Hitler took power: "I can assure you that the misuse of the word ‘national’ by our rulers has thoroughly broken me of the habit of national feelings that was so pronounced in my case. I would now be willing to see Germany disappear as

1320-671: The art of lecturing. While at Göttingen, Sommerfeld met Johanna Höpfner, daughter of Ernst Höpfner, curator at Göttingen. In October 1897 Sommerfeld began the appointment to the Chair of Mathematics at the Bergakademie in Clausthal-Zellerfeld ; he was successor to Wilhelm Wien . This appointment provided enough income to eventually marry Johanna. At Klein's request, Sommerfeld took on the position of editor of Volume V of Enzyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften ; it

1375-592: The award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given. Clausthal-Zellerfeld Clausthal-Zellerfeld is located on the Upper Harz Plateau. The surrounding area is less mountainous compared to most of the Harz. As a result, the adjacent area is less wooded and there

1430-612: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use

1485-451: The development of quantum mechanics, which was then in very rapid development. During his 32 years of teaching at Munich, Sommerfeld taught general and specialized courses, as well as holding seminars and colloquia. The general courses were on mechanics, mechanics of deformable bodies, electrodynamics, optics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and partial differential equations in physics. They were held four hours per week, 13 weeks in

1540-488: The early 20th century, theorists, such as Sommerfeld at Munich and Max Born at the University of Göttingen , with their early training in mathematics, turned this around so that mathematical physics, i.e., theoretical physics, became the prime mover, and experimental physics was used to verify or advance theory. After getting their doctorates with Sommerfeld, Wolfgang Pauli , Werner Heisenberg , and Walter Heitler became Born's assistants and made significant contributions to

1595-528: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use

1650-540: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from

1705-745: The latest advances in quantum mechanics, before splitting into two volumes. In 1918, Sommerfeld succeeded Einstein as chair of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG). One of his accomplishments was the founding of a new journal. The scientific papers published in DPG journals became so voluminous, that in 1919 a committee of the DPG recommended the establishment of Zeitschrift für Physik for publication of original research articles, which commenced in 1920. Since any reputable scientist could have their article published without refereeing, time between submission and publication

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1760-540: The main center around Adolph-Roemer-Straße in the Clausthal district. Small-scale retail can be found in the side center in the Zellerfeld district. At the beginning of 2000, an area at the former Ostbahnhof was designated as a special location for large-scale retail. Further supermarkets can be found at the northern exit of Zellerfeld. Overall, the retail trade in the former mountain town is not very well developed and

1815-522: The national exam in 1892 and then began a year of military service, which was done with the reserve regiment in Königsberg. He completed his obligatory military service in September 1893, and for the next eight years continued voluntary eight-week military service. With his turned up moustache, his physical build, his Prussian bearing, and the fencing scar on his face, he gave the impression of being

1870-479: The new Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Munich . He was selected for these positions by Wilhelm Röntgen , Director of the Physics Institute at Munich, which was looked upon by Sommerfeld as being called to a "privileged sphere of action". Until the late 19th century and early 20th century, experimental physics in Germany was considered as having a higher status within the community. In

1925-497: The old Clausthal University of Technology and its magnificent buildings, while Zellerfeld is a typical tourist resort for hikers and winter sportsmen. Clausthal-Zellerfeld is the largest town in the area that is situated in the mountains rather than on the edge. Mining in the area began in the 16th century. Modern wire rope was invented to service the iron mines in the 1830s by the German mining engineer Wilhelm Albert in

1980-514: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II

2035-510: The present day the most common way to solve this kind of problem. Also, as a mark of the prowess of Sommerfeld's school of theoretical physics and the rise of theoretical physics in the early 1900s, as of 1928, nearly one-third of the ordinarius professors of theoretical physics in the German-speaking world were students of Sommerfeld. On 1 April 1935 Sommerfeld achieved emeritus status. He remained as his own temporary replacement during

2090-552: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates

2145-670: The research division of the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (General Electric Company) and president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft , made reference to this in their correspondence to officials in the Reich. In an attachment to Prandtl's 28 April 1941 letter to Reich Marshal Hermann Göring , Prandtl referred to the appointment as "sabotage" of necessary theoretical physics instruction. In an attachment to Ramsauer's 20 January 1942 letter to Reich Minister Bernhard Rust , Ramsauer concluded that

2200-607: The selection process for his successor, which took until 1 December 1939. The process was lengthy due to academic and political differences between the Munich Faculty's selection and that of both the Reichserziehungsministerium (REM; Reich Education Ministry) and the supporters of Deutsche Physik , which was anti-Semitic and had a bias against theoretical physics , especially including quantum mechanics . The appointment of Wilhelm Müller – who

2255-1350: The six-volume Lectures on Theoretical Physics . For a list of students, please see the list organized by type. Four of Sommerfeld's doctoral students, Werner Heisenberg , Wolfgang Pauli , Peter Debye , and Hans Bethe went on to win Nobel Prizes , while others, most notably, Walter Heitler , Rudolf Peierls , Karl Bechert , Hermann Brück , Paul Peter Ewald , Eugene Feenberg , Herbert Fröhlich , Erwin Fues , Ernst Guillemin , Helmut Hönl , Ludwig Hopf , Adolf Kratzer , Otto Laporte , Wilhelm Lenz , Karl Meissner , Rudolf Seeliger , Ernst C. Stückelberg , Heinrich Welker , Gregor Wentzel , Alfred Landé , and Léon Brillouin became famous in their own right. Three of Sommerfeld's postdoctoral supervisees, Linus Pauling , Isidor I. Rabi and Max von Laue , won Nobel Prizes, and ten others, William Allis , Edward Condon , Carl Eckart , Edwin C. Kemble , William V. Houston , Karl Herzfeld , Walther Kossel , Philip M. Morse , Howard Robertson , and Wojciech Rubinowicz went on to become famous in their own right. Walter Rogowski , an undergraduate student of Sommerfeld at RWTH Aachen , also went on to become famous in his own right. Max Born believed Sommerfeld's abilities included

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2310-447: The sport. While at Munich, Sommerfeld came in contact with the special theory of relativity by Albert Einstein , which was not yet widely accepted. His mathematical contributions to the theory helped its acceptance by the skeptics. In 1914 he worked with Léon Brillouin on the propagation of electromagnetic waves in dispersive media. He became one of the founders of quantum mechanics ; some of his contributions included co-discovery of

2365-515: The title Partial Differential Equations in Physics . Lectures by Klein in 1895 and 1896 on rotating bodies led Klein and Sommerfeld to write a four-volume text Die Theorie des Kreisels – a 13-year collaboration, 1897–1910. The first two volumes were on theory, and the latter two were on applications in geophysics, astronomy, and technology. The association Sommerfeld had with Klein influenced Sommerfeld's turn of mind to be applied mathematics and in

2420-408: The tourist information and the municipal library today. The Clausthal University of Technology was established in 1775 for the education of mining engineers . Today, it is a technical university for teaching engineering , natural science (especially chemistry, materials science and physics), computer science and business studies . 2006 local elections: The retail trade is mostly located in

2475-403: The town were destroyed in an air raid on 7 October 1944. 92 people lost their lives. Mining activity halted in 1930 because the ore deposits were exhausted. Today, there are large remains of mines in the surrounding Harz region, some of which are now museums . The railway line was closed in 1976. The former railway station, which was rebuilt from 1961–1963 after being destroyed in 1944, houses

2530-497: The usual craft businesses, there is a relatively large window factory as well as several companies spun off from the Clausthal University of Technology or CUTEC, which specialize primarily in particle measurement technology in testing technology. Tourism is another important branch of the economy in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, but above all in its districts Altenau, Buntenbock, Schulenberg and Wildemann. From 1877 to 1976,

2585-456: The winter and 11 weeks in the summer, and were for students who had taken experimental physics courses from Röntgen and later by Wilhelm Wien. There was also a two-hour weekly presentation for the discussion of problems. The specialized courses were of topical interest and based on Sommerfeld's research interests; material from these courses appeared later in the scientific literature publications of Sommerfeld. The objective of these special lectures

2640-509: The years between 1831 and 1834 for use in mining in the Harz Mountains in Clausthal. It was quickly accepted because it proved superior to ropes made of hemp or to metal chains, such as had been used before and soon found its way into diverse applications, including most notably, suspension bridges . The Innerste Valley Railway was inaugurated in 1877 and extended to Altenau in 1914. The large station building and 70 other buildings in

2695-501: Was a major undertaking which lasted from 1898 to 1926. In 1900, Sommerfeld started his appointment to the Chair of Applied Mechanics at the Königliche Technische Hochschule Aachen (later RWTH Aachen University ) as extraordinarius professor, which was arranged through Klein's efforts. At Aachen, he developed the theory of hydrodynamics , which would retain his interest for a long time. Later, at

2750-634: Was elected an Honorary member of the Optical Society in 1950. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize 84 times, more than any other physicist (including Otto Stern , who got nominated 82 times), but he never received the award. Sommerfeld died on April 26, 1951, in Munich from injuries after a traffic accident while walking with his grandchildren. The accident occurred at the corner of Dietlindenstrasse and Biedersteiner Strasse near his house which

2805-601: Was located at Dunantstrasse 6. He is buried at the Nordfriedhof close to where he lived at the time. In 2004, the center for theoretical physics at the University of Munich was named after him. Foreign Member of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made

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2860-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership

2915-512: Was not a theoretical physicist, had not published in a physics journal, and was not a member of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft – as a replacement for Sommerfeld, was considered such a travesty and detrimental to educating a new generation of physicists that both Ludwig Prandtl , director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Strömungsforschung ( Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Flow Research ), and Carl Ramsauer , director of

2970-504: Was to grapple with current issues in theoretical physics and for Sommerfeld and the students to garner a systematic comprehension of the issue, independent of whether or not they were successful in solving the problem posed by the current issue. For the seminar and colloquium periods, students were assigned papers from the current literature and they then prepared an oral presentation. From 1942 to 1951, Sommerfeld worked on putting his lecture notes in order for publication. They were published as

3025-485: Was very rapid – as fast as two weeks. This greatly stimulated the scientific theoretical developments, especially that of quantum mechanics in Germany at that time, as this journal was the preferred publication vehicle for the new generation of quantum theorists with avant-garde views. In the winter semester of 1922/1923, Sommerfeld gave the Carl Schurz Memorial Professor of Physics lectures at

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