Geiger, Hans Wilhelm (30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945): German physicist

He was German physicist, who invented the Geiger counter. Geiger was born on 30 September, 1882, in Neustadt in der Rhein-Pfalz, one of Germany’s loveliest wine districts.

The son of philologist, Geiger was educated in the Universities of Munich and Erlangen where he obtained his PhD in 1906. At the University of Erlangen, he worked with Eilhard Wiedemann (1852-1928) and wrote a thesis on electrical discharges through gases.

His first academic appointment took him to Manchester University as assistant to Professor Arthur Schuster (1851 – 1934).

In the following year Schuster was succeeded by Ernest Rutherford. In 1908, in cooperation with Rutherford, Geiger investigated the nature of the alpha particle, showing that it had a double positive charge.

In 1911 Geiger and John Mitchell Nuttall discovered the Geiger–Nuttall law (or rule) and performed experiments that led to Rutherford's atomic model.

Geiger also designed instrument capable of detecting and counting alpha particles. These were the prototype of the counter Geiger developed in the 1920s with W. Muller, which has since become widely known as the Geiger counter (or Geiger Muller counter). Geiger returned to Germany in 1912 to direct the Physikalisch Technische Reichanstalt in Berlin.

He later held chairs of physics at the Universities of Kiel (1925-29) and Tubingen (1929-36). In 1936, he was appointed head of physics at the technical University, Charlottenburg.

His great achievements are the Geiger-Nuttall relation, Geiger point counter Geiger-Muller counter and the coincidence principle.

The introduction in July 1928 of the Geiger-Müller counter marked the introduction of modern electrical devices into radiation research.
Geiger, Hans Wilhelm (30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945): German physicist

German painter and graphic artist Max Beckman

Max Beckman was born in Leipzig on February 1884. He was one of Germany’s leading Expressionist painters. After his father early death, when Beckman was only 10, his family move to Brunswick and he was sent to a boarding school.

Beckman studied at the Weimar Academy (1900-1903) and then worked in Berlin.

He painted his first self-portrait at the age 15. His early paintings were influenced by impressionism, and he also produced works with biblical and mythological themes, reflecting his admiration of medieval art.

In 1906, Beckman painted his Great Scene of Death and Small Scene of Death, in which he tried to express and come to terms with his own grief at his mother’s painful death.

At the start of World War 1 (1914) he served as a medical orderly but was discharged following a nervous breakdown. These experiences of war profoundly influenced his later work.

In 1919, in the aftermath of the war, Beckman visited Berlin.  This was in March, at the height of the street fighting between revolutionaries and Freikops.

He responded to the chaos and violence in German’s cities with two of his most significant works of the period: Die Nacht (The Night) and the portfolio of large lithographs titles Die Holle (Hell).

The beginning is the eight of nine triptychs Beckman producing during the last two decades of his life between 1932 and 1950.

Beckman retained his life an instinctive fell to the art of the past, gravitating towards images and epochs in which he saw powerful and simple expression.

He taught in Frankfurt until 1933, when he was dismissed by the Nazi regime as a ‘degenerate artist’

He went first to Berlin, then to Paris and Amsterdam, and finally (in 1947) to the United States, where he taught a produced work that was lighter and less harsh. In the last two years of his life Beckman received academic honors and prizes in the United States and at the Venice Biennale.
German painter and graphic artist Max Beckman

Peace of Augsburg

Promulgated on September 25, 1555, the Peace of Augsburg brought an end to years of religious tension and conflict in Germany and established the basis for the legal coexistent of Catholicism and Lutheranism in the Holy Roman Empire.

The peace was announced during a ceremony in the Guildhall. One of the immediate consequences was the development of narrow Protestant dogmatism, not least because only the Lutheran confession was given legal recognition.

The provision of the Peace of Augsburg included the guarantee of personal and legal security to the imperial of both parties which included rights of worship and church polity for the adherents of the Augsburg Confession; the recognition of princely sovereignty over religion on the principle that ‘where there is one ruler; there should be one religion’.

The Peace of Augsburg also specified that Protestants could keep the possessions of Catholic estates confiscated before 1552.

The origins of the Peace of Augsburg can the traced not only to earlier attempts to resolve the religious within the Holy Roman Empire but also to the compromises that the Holy Roman Empire emperor Charles V agreed to in order to gain the support of the Lutheran princes in his campaign against the Ottoman Turks and also against the French.
Peace of Augsburg