History

Modern science is based on the findings of earlier generations. Numerous committed researchers have worked in the field of physics at the University of Vienna and have played a decisive role in shaping the development of our current understanding of the world with their contributions. Many of them can be found on this page.

Professor in Prague, Chemnitz and Vienna. In 1850 he was appointed the first director of the new Institute of Physics in Vienna. He held this position until his early death in 1853. In 1842, Doppler was the first to describe the phenomenon known today as the Doppler effect.

He habilitated at the University of Vienna in 1866; two years later he became assistant professor. From 1872 until his retirement in 1891 he was professor of physical chemistry at the University of Vienna. The Loschmidt number is named after him, which indicates the number of particles per unit volume of an ideal gas under normal conditions.

He studied at the University of Vienna, where he habilitated in mathematical physics in 1858 and was appointed full professor of higher mathematics and physics in 1863. He was the youngest university professor in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Stefan was director of the Institute of Physics from 1866, dean in 1869/70 and rector of the University of Vienna in 1876/77.

He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1860 and his habilitation in 1861. In 1864 he was appointed professor of mathematics in Graz, where he also became professor of physics two years later. In 1867 Mach was called to Prague and served there as dean of the philosophical faculty and from 1879 as rector. In 1895 he returned to the University of Vienna, where he was appointed to the chair of "philosophy, especially history and theory of inductive sciences".

Studied at our faculty between 1863 and 1866, where he received his doctorate in 1866. He worked here from 1873 to 1906 as professor of mathematics and theoretical physics, interrupted by professorships in Graz, Munich and Leipzig. Boltzmann, whose greatest achievement was the development of statistical mechanics, is considered one of the most influential physicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

She studied physics and mathematics in Vienna and in 1906 received her doctorate as the second woman in physics at the University of Vienna. The following year she went to Berlin, where she became Max Planck's assistant and worked closely with the later Nobel Prize winner Otto Hahn in the field of radioactivity and nuclear fission. In 1938 Meitner emigrated to Stockholm, where she continued her scientific work until her retirement in 1960.

From 1906 to 1920 he worked as an assistant in Vienna, first under Franz Serafin Exner at the University of Vienna, where he also habilitated; later under Stefan Meyer at the adjacent, newly established Institute for Radium Research. He held professorships in Graz, Innsbruck and – after his emigration in 1938 – at Fordham University in New York. In 1936 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of cosmic rays.

From 1906 to 1910 he studied physics at the University of Vienna, where he also received an assistant position in 1911. From 1920 he was appointed to Jena, Breslau, Zurich, Berlin, Oxford, Graz and Dublin. In 1956 he returned to Vienna and worked as a professor of theoretical physics at our faculty until his death in 1961. Schrödinger was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 together with Paul Dirac "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory".

He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna, where he worked as an assistant, professor and head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics until he was forced into retirement after the Anschluss in 1938. In 1946 he resumed his work at the University of Vienna and in 1946/47 also held the office of Dean of the Philosophical Faculty.