German physicist, b. 1874, d. 1957. Stark received his doctorate from Munich University in 1897. His first job was at Munich University as an assitant. After that, he became a lecturer at the University of Göttingen. Proffesorships followed in both Hannover and Aachen, and the University of Greifswald. After this, we went to the University of Würzburg, where he remained until 1922. He was elected president of Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (a physical and technical institute) in 1933. He remained at this post until his retirement in 1939.

Stark's work generally fell into three fields: electric currents in gases, valency of atoms, and spectroscopy. In his career, he published over 300 papers. After his retirement, he was able to set up his own private laboratory, where he investigated the effect of non-uniform electric fields on the propogation of electromagnetic signals.

He was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize in physics

"for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields"

Back to Nobel Prizes: Physics

Researched on www.nobel.se

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