Eugen Goldstein and his laboratory work at Berlin Observatory

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, the astronomer Wilhelm Foerster, director of Berlin Observatory, initiated an extraordinary research project: He asked the physicist Eugen Goldstein to examine experimentally the nature of electricity in space. Eugen Goldstein (1850–1930) was one of the most deserving pioneers in the field of electricity. He discovered, e.g., the canal rays, and he introduced the term cathode ray. He became assistent at Berlin Observatory, and his official duty was the research on relations between electricity and cosmic phenomena. As a result, Goldstein successfully reproduced comet tails in gas discharge tubes.