!!!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 18%%sup th/% 
 century, and even in the early years of the 19%%sup th/%  century it 
was still seen as a technological discipline devoid of theoretical 
foundation.

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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.

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Other important physicists of the 19%%sup th/%  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).

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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.

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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.

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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).


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