Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Walter Bothe

8 January 1881, Oranienburg – 8 February 1957, Heidelberg

The experimental physicist Walter Bothe studied physics at Berliner Universität from 1908 to 1912. One year later he became an assistant at the Institute of Physics of the Agricultural College (Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule), Berlin, and later moved to the Reich Physical and Technical Institute (Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt). In 1925 he qualified as a professor under Max Planck and became an associate professor at Berliner Universität. He went to Giessen in 1929. Bothe's works made an important contribution to the foundation of modern nuclear physics, which deals with the structure and behaviour of atomic nuclei. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 for developing the coincidence method and the related discoveries.