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Richard Gans: The First Quantum Physicist in Latin America

Richard Gans (1880–1954) was appointed Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Physics of the National University of La Plata,Argentina, in 1912 and published a series of papers on quantum physics between 1915 and 1918 that marked him as the first quantum physicist in Latin America. I set Gans’s work within the context of his education and career in Germany prior to 1912 and his life and work in Argentina until 1925, as well as the foundation of the Institute of Physics of the National University of La Plata in 1906–1909 and its subsequent development by Emil Bose (1874–1911). I conclude by commenting on Gans’s life after he returned to Germany in 1925 and then immigrated once again to Argentina in 1947.

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Correspondence to Maria Cecilia von Reichenbach.

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Maria Cecilia von Reichenbach is Director of the Museum of Physics in the Department of Physics of the National University of La Plata,Argentina. After her studies in physics she turned to research in the history of physics, focusing especially on the history of 20th- century physics in Argentina.

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von Reichenbach, M.C. Richard Gans: The First Quantum Physicist in Latin America. Phys. Perspect. 11, 302–317 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-008-0416-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-008-0416-0

Keywords:

  • Richard Gans
  • Friedrich Paschen
  • Emil Bose
  • Margrete Heiberg Bose
  • Joaquin V. González
  • Walther Nernst
  • University of Tübingen
  • University of Strassburg
  • National University of La Plata
  • magnetism
  • quantum physics
  • history of physics