Max von Laue, 1879-1960

Abstract

In Max von Laue the world has lost one of the great physicists of the period of transition from classical physics to quantum physics. His work can be roughly divided by subject matter into thermodynamics of radiation, optics, including X-ray optics, relativity, and superconductivity. Best known is, of course, Laue’s discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals in 1912, which was carried out experimentally by his collaborators W. Friedrich and P. Knipping. So evident was the importance of this work for elucidating the —up to then only surmised—nature of both X-rays and crystals that the 1914 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Laue—at that time a very prompt recognition of a fundamental investigation in physics. Two great branches of the physico-chemical sciences grew out of Laue’s discovery: X-ray spectroscopy which gave invaluable help in the development of atomic theory, and X-ray crystal structure analysis, alias X-ray crystallography, which revolutionized the scope and precision of our understanding the solid state, mainly from a chemical point of view. In neither of these two scions of his original idea did Laue take more than a receptive interest, whereas the more physical part of X-ray optics, later enlarged by electron optics, focused his creative work up to the last weeks of his life.