Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn, 10 March 1904 - 26 August 1994

Abstract

H.G. Kuhn was one of the group of emigre physicists who did so much for their subject in their adopted Oxford. Silesian by birth, he studied for his doctorate at Gottingen under the Nobel Laureate James Franck, but when his career in Germany was terminated by Nazi pressures, he was recruited for Oxford by Professor F.A. Lindemann to work at the Clarendon Laboratory. He joined Derek Jackson in work on hyperfine structure in atomic spectra, on spectral profiles and on pressure broadening. After naturalization as a British subject in 1939, he became a member of the team working on the separation of uranium isotopes. In 1945 he resumed his research in atomic spectroscopy. He was elected to a Fellowship at Balliol College in 1950; as its first physics Fellow, he rapidly gained a reputation as an outstanding teacher, confirming his standing in the Clarendon Laboratory. He was the author of two important textbooks on atomic spectra, one published in Germany in 1934 (1), the other in England in 1962 (2). He became a University Lecturer in Oxford in 1945, and a Reader in 1955; after retirement he worked for some time in the Department of Astrophysics.