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Table of Contents
Otto Haxel was a leading figure in the field of nuclear physics. While he began his career in the field of nuclear weapons, his work would have a long-lasting impact on nuclear energy studies.
See the fact file below for more information on Otto Haxel, or you can download our 26-page Otto Haxel worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information
OVERVIEW
- Otto Haxel was a German nuclear physicist born on April 2, 1909, in Neu-Ulm in Heidelberg.
- He worked on the German nuclear energy project during World War II. After the war, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Göttingen.
- From 1950 to 1974, he was an ordinarius professor of physics at the University of Heidelberg. He served on the German Atomic Energy Commission’s Nuclear Physics Working Group in 1956 and 1957. From 1970 to 1975, he was the Scientific and Technical Managing Director of the Karlsruhe Research Center.
THE BEGINNING OF THE NUCLEAR AGE
- Otto Haxel was born in Bavaria, Germany, when Germany was the aggressor on the European stage, conquering neighbors and running concentration camps.
- By August 1939, the US was well aware that Germany was working on a nuclear project in which Haxel would be involved in various ways.
- “It may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated,” Albert Einstein warned Roosevelt. Otto Haxel was at the forefront of Germany’s nuclear initiative in many ways.
EDUCATION
- Haxel attended several universities on his way to becoming a nuclear physicist.
- From 1927 to 1933, Haxel attended the Technische Hochschule München (now the Technische Universität München) and the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen.
- In 1933, he received his doctorate from Hans Geiger at the University of Tübingen.
- Haxel worked as Geiger’s teaching assistant from 1933 to 1936, earning his habilitation (or privatdozent) in 1936.
CAREER
- Many of Germany’s scientific talents had fled the country due to German National Socialism laws. Others were fleeing the Nazi regime, while some were Jewish scientists. Some of these brilliant minds went on to work on the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the successful development of a nuclear bomb.
- There was also a lack of coordination among program departments, which resulted in miscommunication and other issues. As Germany diverted resources to its war effort, all work on the project halted in 1942.
- Germany never achieved the nuclear chain reaction required to enrich uranium or even consider using plutonium. Otto Haxel was drafted into the military in 1942. His new position placed him in charge of a nuclear research group reporting to Admiral Rhein of the German Navy.
- Göttingen Eighteen Manifesto. Otto Haxel’s career in academia began after he served in the military. From 1946 to 1950, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics with Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932. He was a supernumerary professor at Georg-August-Universitat in Gottingen at the time. He also collaborated with Fritz Houtermans, a radioactivity researcher at the University of Gottingen.
- The Göttingen Manifesto was a declaration by 18 leading West German nuclear scientists (including Nobel laureates Otto Hahn, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Max von Laue) opposing the West German government’s proposal to arm the West German army with tactical nuclear weapons in the 1950s, during the early stages of the Cold War.
- At the time of the Gottingham Eighteen Manifesto, the concept of nuclear non-proliferation emerged in Germany. Otto Haxel was not alone in his opposition to arming Germany with atomic weapons. In the 1950s, he signed the Gottingen Eighteen Manifesto, joined by leading scientists who opposed Germany arming itself with tactical nuclear weapons.
- Haxel was the professor and director of the Physical Institute at the University of Heidelberg. Environmental physics was developed in the 1950s, primarily through the motivation of Haxel and the application of nuclear physics.
- As a result, the Institute for Environmental Physics was established in 1975, with Karl-Otto Münnich as its founding director.
- During 1956 and 1957, Haxel was a member of the Nuclear Physics Working Group of the German Atomic Energy Commission.
- Other members of the Nuclear Physics Working Group included Werner Heisenberg (chairman), Hans Kopfermann (vice-chairman), Fritz Bopp, Walther Bothe, Wolfgang Gentner, Willibald Jentschke, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Josef Mattauch, Wolfgang Riezler, Wilhelm Walcher, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. In 1957, Wolfgang Paul was also a member of the group.
- Haxel was the Scientific and Technical Managing Director of the Karlsruhe Research Center from 1970 to 1975.
- Haxel was a signatory to the Göttingen Eighteen Manifesto.
- Haxel also worked on developing “magic numbers” in nuclear shell theory with J. Hans D. Jensen.
- Hans Jensen’s theoretical formulation of the nuclear shell model, which he published in 1949 in collaboration with Haxel and Suess and independently from Maria Goeppert-Mayer, provided the first coherent explanation for various atomic nuclei properties and structures.
- It explained the existence of the “magic numbers” of protons and neutrons determined from experiments on the stability properties and observed abundances of chemical elements from terrestrial and non-terrestrial sources.
PERSONAL
- Fritz Houtermans, a friend of Haxel, had four marriages. His first and third wife was Charlotte Riefenstahl, a physicist educated at the University of Göttingen. Houtermans married chemical engineer Ilse Bartz in February 1944; they collaborated on a paper during the war.
- In August 1953, Houtermans divorced Ilse and remarried Charlotte. After Ilse’s divorce from Houtermans, Haxel married her.
- Haxel’s friendship with Houtermans eventually led to his own marriage. Ilse Bartz and Haxel had two children together, Christoph and Philipp.
- Otto Haxel died on February 26, 1998, in Heidelberg, at the age of 88.
Otto Haxel Worksheets
This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Otto Haxel across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Otto Haxel, who was a leading figure in the field of nuclear physics.
Complete List of Included Worksheets
Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.
- Otto Haxel Facts
- Physicist’s Profile
- Haxel’s Words
- Work Of Science
- Journey Of Life
- Who Are You?
- Are You A Patriot?
- The Award Goes To
- It’s My Time
- #Education
- I Want To Be A…
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