Posted on April 5, 2020
She was also Jewish.
Since she was born on this date in 1887, that wasn't a great combination.
Actually, Kohn was born in what was THEN Breslau, German Empire, but is NOW Wroclaw, Poland. She went to Breslau University and was able to earn a doctorate in physics as well as a "habilitation" - the qualification for teaching in a university. Needless to say, this was rare for a woman, back then; as a matter of fact, Kohn was one of only three women to qualify to teach university classes in all of Germany before World War II.
But just a few years after earning the right to teach at uni, Kohn was forced to leave her job and her nation. She was able to get a visa to the United Kingdom I 1939, but she lost the opportunity because of WWII stuff; finally she was able to get a visa to travel to Sweden and promptly went there in July 1940. From Sweden, she was able to travel to her goal - a teaching assignment at the Women's College of the University of North Carolina, in the United States - by taking a circuitous route: from Stockholm to Leningrad to Moscow to Vladivostok (a harbor town in the USSR, on the coast of the Sea of Japan), Yokohama (Japan), then on to San Francisco, Chicago, and FINALLY Greensboro, NC.
Kohn lived in the U.S. the rest of her life, with several positions as university physics professor and a final position as a research associate. She studied the intensity of light, emission lines of atoms and molecules, and ways of gaining information from light intensity and emission lines.
Intensity of light is a measurement of how many photons pass through a particular area per unit of time (say, per second).
Intensity of light is a measurement of how many photons pass through a particular area per unit of time (say, per second).
Emission lines are particular bits of a spectrum that are emitted when a chemical element is hot and glowing. Each element has its own characteristic emission lines.
Hedwig Kohn did a lot of research, wrote a lot of papers, trained a lot of students - and of course made an epic journey during a World War!
Also on this date:
Anniversary of the discovery of Linear B - an archeological treasure
(from sunset this evening until sunset tomorrow)
(11th day of the month of Nissan)
Plan ahead:
Check out my Pinterest boards for:
And here are my Pinterest boards for:
No comments:
Post a Comment