Arthur Erich Haas

Arthur Erich Haas (April 30, 1884 in Brno – February 20, 1941 in Chicago) was an Austrian physicist, noted for a 1910 paper^[1] he submitted in support of his habilitation as Privatdocent at the University of Vienna that outlined a treatment of the hydrogen atom involving quantization of electronic orbitals, thus anticipating the Bohr model (1913) by three years.

Haas’ paper, however, was initially rejected and even ridiculed. As noted in his autobiography, Haas recalls "When I lectured to the Chemical-Physical Society of Vienna... Lecher ...referred to the presentation during open discussion as a carnival joke" (The lecture was held during carnival time in Austria, February 1910). Soon thereafter, however, by September 1911 at a physical science convention in Karlsruhe, former detractors of Haas' work acknowledged it with greater enthusiasm as noted in a footnote: "We do not know what caused [a] change of mind in 1911 and can merely suggest the general trend of thinking at the time: 1910 saw the beginning of a universal shift of opinion of the quantum concept."^[2]

The significance of Haas' work lay in the establishment of a relationship between Planck's constant and atomic dimensions, having been first to correctly estimate the magnitude of what is today known as the Bohr radius.

Works

• Die Grundgleichungen der Mechanik dargestellt auf Grund der geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Leipzig: Veit, 1914.
• Einführung in die theoretische Physik (2 volumes) 1. {online} Leipzig: Veit, 1919; 2. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1921. English translation: Introduction to Theoretical Physics, translated by T. Verschoyle, London: Constable, 1925.
• Naturbild der Neuen Physik, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1920. English translation: The New Physics, translated by R. Lawson, London: Methuen, 1923.
• Atomtheorie, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1924. English translation: Atomic Theory: An Elementary Exposition, translated by T. Verschoyle, London: Constable, 1927.
• Materiewellen und Quantenmechanik, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1928. English translation: Wave Mechanics and the New Quantum Theory, translated by L. W. Codd, London: Constable, 1928.
• Die Grundlagen der Quantenchemie, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1929. Revised English translation: Quantum Chemistry: A Short Introduction in Four Non-Mathematical Lectures, translated by L. W. Codd, New York: R. R. Smith, 1930.
• Die kosmologischen Probleme der Physik, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1934.
• Umwaldlungen der chemischen Elemente, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1935.

See also

• Bohr model
• History of quantum mechanics

References

1. Haas, Arthur Erich (1884-1941) Uber die elektrodynamische Bedeutung des Planckschen Strahlungsgesetzes und uber eine neue Bestimmung des elektrischen Elementarquantums und der dimension des wasserstoffatoms. Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. 2a, 119 pp 119-144 (1910). Haas AE. Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Kraft. Habilitation Thesis, Vienna, 1909. Hermann, A. Arthur Erich Haas, Der erste Quantenansatz für das Atom. Stuttgart, 1965 [contains a reprint].
2. Hermann, Armin (1974) Claude W. Nash (tr.) The Genesis of Quantum Theory (1899-1913). The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, Ch. 5. ISBN 0-262-08047-8.

External links

• Arthur Erich Haas - FREE Arthur Erich Haas Biography | Encyclopedia.com: Facts, Pictures, Information! at www.encyclopedia.com
• Arthur Erich Haas at the aeiou Encyclopedia