UNSöLD, ALBRECHT OTTO JOHANNES
(b. Bolheim, Württemberg, Germany, 20 April 1905;
d. Kiel, Germany, 23 September 1995), astrophysics, stellar atmosphere physics.
German astrophysicist Unsöld, for the longest part of his career based at the University of Kiel, was among the first researchers applying the formalism of quantum mechanics to the physics of stellar atmospheres.
Early Life and Studies. Unsöld, son of a Protestant minister, attended primary and secondary school in Heidenheim, Württemberg. He developed an early interest in science because both his father and grandfather, a school teacher in Stuttgart, were botany enthusiasts and his uncle, who owned a notable physical cabinet, conducted experiments in wireless telegraphy and on dynamos. After reading Arnold Sommerfeld’s fairly technical textbook on quantum theory, Atombau und Spektrallinien (Atomic structure and spectral lines), which had then just appeared, the precocious fourteen-year old Albrecht wrote a letter to the prominent author, enclosing a manuscript of his own. (Transcription of these letters, also including Sommerfeld’s very friendly response, have been published by Weidemann.)
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