Otto Stern
Stern, Otto (1888-1969) was a German-born American physicist who won the 1943 Nobel Prize in physics for his use of molecular beams to explore the properties of atoms and molecules and for discovering the magnetic moment of the proton.
Stern received his advanced education in several German universities, and was awarded his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from the University of Breslau in 1912. From 1912 through 1914, he worked as research assistant to Albert Einstein, in both Prague and Zurich. Einstein's influence made a lasting impression on Stern and planted the seed for the major accomplishments of his later career. After serving in the army during World War I (1914-1918), he turned his interests to experimental physics. He began research on molecular beams in 1919 as an assistant director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Frankfort. He then continued his research as a faculty member of the universities of Rostock (1921-1922) and Hamburg (1923-33), where he was also director of the physical chemistry laboratory. Stern emigrated to the U.S. in 1933, became a U.S. citizen in 1939, and served as research professor of physics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology until 1946, when he moved to Berkeley, California.
Stern's work in applying molecular beams to examine the free atoms in gases, and to determine their behavior, proved beyond doubt several important theories. He developed methods for dramatically demonstrating the wave nature of molecules and atoms and was the first to measure the magnetic moment of protons. Stern was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of California, Berkeley, and was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He was also a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.