Today (March 24, 1884) is the Birthday of Peter Joseph William Debbie,
winner of the Nobel Prize for outstanding contributions to X-ray scattering.
Peter Joseph William Debye was born on March 24, 1884, in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Debye enrolled in the Aachen University of Technology in 1901. In 1905, he completed his first degree in electrical engineering. He published his first paper, a mathematically elegant solution of a problem involving eddy currents, in 1907. At Aachen, he studied under the theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, who later claimed that his most important discovery was Peter Debye. In 1906, Sommerfeld received an appointment at Munich, Bavaria, and took Debye with him as his assistant. Debye got his PhD with a dissertation on radiation pressure in 1908. In 1910, he derived the Planck radiation formula using a method that Max Planck agreed was simpler than his own.
Debye was described as a martinet when it came to scientific principles, yet was always approachable and made time for his students. His first major scientific contribution was the application of the concept of dipole moment to the charge distribution in asymmetric molecules in 1912, developing equations relating dipole moments to temperature and dielectric constant. In consequence, the units of molecular dipole moments are termed debyes in his honour. Also in 1912, he extended Albert Einstein's theory of specific heat to lower temperatures by including contributions from low-frequency phonons.
In 1913, he extended Niels Bohr's theory of atomic structure, introducing elliptical orbits, a concept also introduced by Arnold Sommerfeld. In 1914–1915, Debye calculated the effect of temperature on X-ray diffraction patterns of crystalline solids with Paul Scherrer (the "Debye-Waller factor"). In 1923, together with his assistant Erich Hückel, he developed an improvement of Svante Arrhenius' theory of electrical conductivity in electrolyte solutions. Although an improvement was made to the Debye–Hückel equation in 1926 by Lars Onsager, the theory is still regarded as a major forward step in our understanding of electrolytic solutions. Also in 1923, Debye developed a theory to explain the Compton effect, the shifting of the frequency of X-rays when they interact with electrons.
In 1911, when Albert Einstein took an appointment as a professor at Prague, Bohemia, Debye took his old professorship at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. This was followed by moves to Utrecht in 1912, to Göttingen in 1913, to ETH Zurich in 1920, to the University of Leipzig in 1927, and in 1934 to Berlin, where, succeeding Einstein, he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (now named the Max-Planck-Institut) whose facilities were built only during Debye's era. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1935. From 1937 to 1939 he was the president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.
In May 1914 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and in December of the same year, he became a foreign member. He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to molecular composition, especially for his excellent contributions to bipolar torque and X-ray scattering. Peter Joseph William Debbie, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Outstanding Contribution to X-Radiation, passed away on November 2, 1966, in Ithaca, New York, at the age of 82.
Source By: Wikipedia
Information: Ramesh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.
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