Paul Ehrenfest

Paul Ehrenfest
Ehrenfest in c. 1910
Born(1880-01-18)18 January 1880
Died25 September 1933(1933-09-25) (aged 53)
Amsterdam, Netherlands
CitizenshipAustria (pre-1922)
Netherlands (post-1922)
Alma materVienna University of Technology
University of Vienna
University of Göttingen
Known forEhrenfest theorem
Ehrenfest paradox
Ehrenfest equations
Ehrenfest model
Coining the term 'spinor'
Coining the term 'ultraviolet catastrophe'
Ehrenfest classification
Ehrenfest–Tolman effect
Nonradiation condition
Privileged character of 3+1 spacetime
Timoshenko–Ehrenfest beam theory
Ehrenfest time
SpouseTatyana Alexeyevna Afanasyeva
ChildrenTatyana Ehrenfest
Galinka Ehrenfest
Paul Jr. Ehrenfest
Vassily Ehrenfest
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist
InstitutionsUniversity of Leiden
Doctoral advisorLudwig Boltzmann
Doctoral studentsJohannes Martinus Burgers
Hendrik Casimir
Dirk Coster
Samuel Goudsmit
Hendrik Kramers
Arend Joan Rutgers
Jan Tinbergen
George Uhlenbeck
Other notable studentsGregory Breit
Paul Sophus Epstein
Viktor Trkal
Gerhard Heinrich Dieke
Gunnar Nordström

Paul Ehrenfest (18 January 1880 – 25 September 1933) was an Austrian theoretical physicist who made major contributions to the topic of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition[1] and the Ehrenfest theorem. He befriended Albert Einstein on a visit to Prague in 1912 and became a professor in Leiden, where he frequently hosted Einstein.[2] He died by murder-suicide in 1933; he killed his disabled son Wassik, and then himself.

  1. ^ Jaeger, Gregg (1 May 1998). "The Ehrenfest Classification of Phase Transitions: Introduction and Evolution". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 53 (1): 51–81. doi:10.1007/s004070050021. S2CID 121525126.
  2. ^ Isaacson, Walter (2007). Einstein : his life and universe. New York. ISBN 978-0-7432-6473-0. OCLC 76961150.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)