Abstract
The most important contribution given to science by Fritz Georg Houtermans consists in the work, carried out in Göttingen in 1928–1929 in collaboration with Robert d'Escourt Atkinson (1898-1982), on the formation of light elements and the consequent energy production in the center of stars /6/ /7/ (Chap. 4). These papers, which appeared years before the discovery of the neutron (1932), are quoted in all review articles reporting on the history of the interpretation of stellar energy in terms of nuclear processes. They provided the motivation for the IAU to assign, on occasion of its meeting in Sidney in August 1973, the name of Houtermans to one of the lunar craters located near the eastern edge of the visible disk of the Earth’s satellite (lunar long. + 87.0, lunar lat. −9.3) [1].
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- 1.
International Astronomical Union (Note of the editors).
- 2.
«… Houtermans was a fictional character with his greatness, his weaknesses, his internal conflicts, all governed by his humanity, his generosity and his particular personal humor that could not be tolerated by any totalitarian regime. This is why I believe that only a novelist of great talent could describe his character, obviously and inevitably at the expense of historical accuracy that you observed so scrupulously» (Translation provided by the editors).
- 3.
Giuseppe Occhialini (Note of the editors).
References
“New Names on the Moon” in “Sky and Telescope”, March 1974, 170–171.
Georg.
Iwanenko expressed his views about this point to Occhialini, while the three others told their opinion on this matter to Weisskopf.
Kharkov (1944).
Sergey Snegov (1910–1994, Soviet science fiction writer), :Title of the book: “The Creators”.
I express my thanks to Constance Dilworth Occhialini for her letter of the 11th November 1985.
Bruno Touschek.
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Amaldi, E. (2013). Why We Remember Him. In: Braccini, S., Ereditato, A., Scampoli, P. (eds) The Adventurous Life of Friedrich Georg Houtermans, Physicist (1903-1966). SpringerBriefs in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32855-8_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32855-8_22
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