Physik#

Physics in the Aristotelian sense has been an important component of what was then called the Arts Faculty since the foundation of the University of Vienna in 1365. The first permanent professorship in this discipline was established in 1554. The modern view of the physical world was only slowly accepted in Austria, and physics did not come into its own as an independent science until the 18th century, and even in the early years of the 19th century it was still seen as a technological discipline devoid of theoretical foundation.

A. v. Baumgartner was the first representative of modern physics in Austria. His textbooks were the first in Austria to describe the Newtonian theories in a mathematically correct way. Together with his successor A. v. Ettingshausen he created the intellectual climate in which C. Doppler and the pioneer of Photography J. Petzval could work.

Other important physicists of the 19th century were J. J. Loschmidt, who calculated the size of molecules and developed a new method for the description of chemical compounds, E. Mach, who is seen as the founder of empiriocriticism along with R. Avenarius, and in particular L. Boltzmann, who championed the concept of the atomistic nature of matter in his gas theory and hence became the co-founder of statistical physics. Important contributions were also made by J. Stefan (relation between temperature and radiant energy), V. Lang (crystal physics), F. Exner (electrochemical and spectral-analytic studies), H. Benndorf (atmospheric electricity) and F. Aigner (acoustics).

Pioneering work in the research of radioactivity was done by F. v. Lerch and L. Meitner. Members of the Radium Institute, which was opened in 1910, included S. Meyer, E. v. Schweidler, H. Mache, K. Przibram and B. Karlik. The discoverer of cosmic radiation and subsequent Nobel Prize winner V. F. Hess worked there as an assistant until 1920.

Around the turn of the century theoretical physics also became an independent field of research. G. Jaeger developed Boltzmann's kinetic gas theory, F. Hasenoehrl was able to prove, a year before Einstein, that radiation has mass, P. Ehrenfest did fundamental work on statistical physics, and the co-founders of wave and quantum mechanics, E. Schroedinger and W. Pauli, were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933 and 1945, respectively.

The spread of Fascism, which controlled the academic climate in Austria from 1934 onwards, also greatly hampered the work of physicists in Austria. People such as F. Ehrenhaft, who became known for his method of measuring the electric charge of small particles, had to leave the country, as did M. Blau, whose work on nuclear track photography was of major importance for the development of elementary particle physics. Others, like H. Thirring, who had published articles on the theory of relativity lost their jobs. Even after the war, many of the best physicists worked abroad, such as the nuclear physicist O. R. Frisch and V. F. Weisskopf, who had both contributed to the construction of the first nuclear bomb. In more recent times W. Thirring and J. Wess distinguished themselves as mathematical physicists, as did the relativity theorist R. Sexl and O. Nachtmann (particle physics).