Zur Theorie der anomalen Dispersion im Gebiete der langwelligen elektrischen Strahlung. Offprint. Gerlach's copy

Debye, Peter

Publication Date: 1913

About this Item

Debye, Peter J. W. (1884-1966). Zur Theorie der anomalen Dispersion im Gebiete der langwelligen elektrischen Strahlung. Offprint from Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft 15 (1913). 777-793pp. 229 x 156 mm. Original printed wrappers, slight wear and toning. Very good to fine. From the library of Walther Gerlach (1889-1979), with his stamp on the front wrapper. First Edition, Offprint Issue. Debye, who trained under Sommerfeld and succeeded Einstein as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich, performed fundamental investigations of the interactions of radiation and matter using x-ray diffraction and other tools, and helped to found modern physical chemistry by developing the fundamental thermodynamics of electrolytic solutions. He received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1936 for his contributions to knowledge of molecular structure, and is one of 17 Nobel laureates in chemistry cited by Weber as having performed outstanding work in physics. In chemistry, polarity is a separation of electric charge leading to a molecule having what is known as an electric dipole moment; i.e., a separation of negative and positive charges such that the molecule has negatively and positively charged ends. Debye was the first scientist to study this phenomenon extensively, and his first major scientific contribution was the development of equations relating the electric dipole moment to temperature and the dielectric constant (a dielectric is an insulating material; an insulator s dielectric constant, also known as relative permittivity, measures the ability of that insulator to store electric energy in an electrical field). Prior to Debye s work the dielectric constant of a substance had been written using the Clausius-Mossotti equation, which gave correct values for most substances with small dielectric constants but not for liquids with large dielectric constants. Debye came up with improved equations that "not only represented the behavior of the dielectric constant satisfactorily, but also established the existence of a permanent electric dipole in many molecules and provided a means of determining the moment of the dipole and, from this, the geometry of the molecule. After many years of use in molecular structure investigations, the unit in which the dipole moment was expressed came to be called the Debye " (Dictionary of Scientific Biography). In the present paper, the second of his three important works on this subject, Debye "showed how the orientation of molecular dipoles in a very high frequency alternating field or in a very viscous medium absorbed energy and gave rise to an anomalous dielectric dispersion and dielectric loss" (Dictionary of Scientific Biography). This copy is from the library of Walther Gerlach, co-discoverer of spin quantization in a magnetic field (the "Stern-Gerlach" effect). .

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Zur Theorie der anomalen Dispersion im Gebiete der langwelligen elektrischen Strahlung. Offprint. Gerlach's copy
• Publication Date: 1913
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition