When was Walther Bothe born?

Walther Bothe was born on 8 January 1891 in Oranienburg.

Where did Walther Bothe study?

Walther Bothe was educated at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Giessen.

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Walther Bothe

German physicist, mathematician and chemist (1891–1957)

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Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈboːtə] ; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German experimental physicist who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Max Born "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith".

Quick facts

Born: 8 January 1891 wd
Place of birth: Oranienburg wd
Died: 8 February 1957 wd
Place of death: Heidelberg wd
Citizenship: Germany wd
Occupation: physicist, inventor, university teacher, chemist, mathematician, nuclear physicist wd
Education: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Giessen wd
Spouse: Barbara Below wd

Awards wd

Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order (1952)
Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Nobel Prize in Physics (1954)
Max Planck Medal (1953)

About

Bothe served in the military during World War I from 1914 and was a prisoner of war of the Russians, returning to Germany in 1920. Upon his return to the laboratory, he developed and applied coincidence circuits to the study of nuclear reactions, such as the Compton effect, cosmic rays, and the wave–particle duality of radiation.

In 1930, Bothe became full professor and director of the Physics Department at the University of Giessen. In 1932, he became director of the Physical and Radiological Institute at Heidelberg University; he was driven out of this position by elements of the Deutsche Physik movement. To preclude his emigration from Germany, he was appointed director of the Physics Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research at Heidelberg University. There, he built the first operational cyclotron in Germany. Furthermore, he became a principal in the German nuclear energy project, also known as Uranverein, which was started in 1939 under the supervision of the Army Ordnance Office.

In 1946, in addition to his directorship of the Physics Institute at the KWImf, Bothe was reinstated as a professor at Heidelberg University. From 1956 to 1957, he was a member of the Nuclear Physics Working Group in Germany.

In the year after Bothe's death, his Physics Institute at the KWImF was elevated to the status of a new institute under the Max Planck Society and then became the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics. Its main building was later named Bothe laboratory.

Questions

When was Walther Bothe born?: Walther Bothe was born on 8 January 1891 in Oranienburg.
Where did Walther Bothe study?: Walther Bothe was educated at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Giessen.

Sources

Last updated 1 November 2026 · facts checked 5 November 2026

Cite this page

"Walther Bothe". DigiNepal. Last updated 1 November 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/walther-bothe. Retrieved 5 November 2026.

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Text from the Wikipedia article Walther Bothe, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Bothe.jpg — Nobel foundation, Public domain.

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