Physics at the National Research Council, Canada : Dr. G. Herzberg

Abstract

DR. GERHARD HERZBERG has been appointed directer, Division of Physics, National Research Council, Canada, in succession to Dr. R. W. Boyle, who retired in October 1948. Dr. Herzberg is a Canadian citizen who has been on the staff of the Division of Physics for some months as a principal research officer, having gone to this post from the Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago, where he had been professor of spectroscopy for nearly three years. During the preceding ten years, he was research professor of physics at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sask. Before that, he had worked in Germany at Darmstadt and Gottingen, and in the University of Bristol. Dr. Herzberg is a leading authority on spectroscopy and molecular structure, and is the author of three standard textbooks and numerous scientific papers. At Saskatoon he established a spectroscopy laboratory for graduate research and thus greatly strengthened the graduate school in physics and chemistry. He and his co-workers made important contributions to interpretation of data on spectral lines of distant stars and of comets. These investigations led up to his work at the Yerkes Observatory, where he built the world‘s longest multiple optical path (5,000 m. at atmospheric pressure) for the study of planetary atmospheres and to gain information on molecular structure. Using this equipment, he carried out important work on the infra-red absorption spectra of hydrogen, which has made it possible to detect hydrogen in planetary atmospheres. Dr. Herzberg will continue his varied researches in his new post.