Karl
Manne Georg Siegbahn was born on the 3rd of December, 1886, at Örebro
in Sweden. His father was Nils Reinhold Georg Siegbahn, a stationmaster of the
State Railways, and his mother was Emma Sofia Mathilda Zetterberg.
After receiving a high-school education he entered the University of Lund in 1906,
where he obtained his doctor's degree, in 1911, on the thesis "Magnetische Feldmessung".
From 1907 to 1911 he served as Assistant to Professor J. R. Rydberg in the Physics
Institute of the University, afterwards he was appointed lecturer and (in 1915)
Deputy Professor of Physics. On the death of Rydberg, he was appointed Professor
(1920). In 1923 he became Professor of Physics at the University of Uppsala. In
1937 came his appointment as Research Professor of Experimental Physics, at the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. When the Physics Department of the Nobel Institute
of the Academy came into being, that same year, Siegbahn was made its first Director.
Siegbahn's early work (1908-1912) was concerned with problems of electricity
and magnetism.
From 1912 to 1937 his research work was mainly devoted
to X-ray spectroscopy. He developed new methods, and designed instruments for
this purpose. His improvements and new constructions of air pumps and X-ray tubes
enabled a considerable increase of the radiation intensity, and the numerous spectrographs
and crystal or linear gratings which he constructed, have resulted in a highly
increased accuracy of his measurements. In this way, a large number of new series
within the characteristic X-radiations of elements could be discovered. The new
precision technique thus developer by Siegbahn led to a practically complete knowledge
of the energy and radiation conditions in the electron shells of the atoms, while
at the same I time a solid empirical foundation was created for the quantum-theoretical
interpretation of attendant phenomena. Siegbahn's findings in this field havt
been summarized by him in his book Spektroskopie der Röntgenstrahlen,
1923 (rev. ed., 1931; ed. in English, 1924), a classic in scientific literature.
As a measure of the high precision achieved by Siegbahn's spectrographs (which
are held at a constant temperature and read, in tenths of seconds, by means of
two microscopes mounted diametrically opposite one another on a precision goniometer)
may be mentioned the fact that his energy-level values, arrived at thirty years
ago, still serve for many purposes.
The research activity in the
Institute under Siegbahn's leadership was directed towards problems of nuclear
physics. For this purpose a cyclotron was constructed capable of accelerating
deuterons of up to 5 to 6 MeV (1939), which was soon to make place for a larger
one for deuteron energies of up to 30 MeV. In addition to this, a high-tension
generator for 400,000 volts was built, as a provisional measure, during the War
(transformed into a plant for 1.5 million volts in 1962). For the purpose of studying
the energy and radiation of the different radioactive isotopes an electromagnetic
separator has been constructed at the Institute, and several new types of ß-spectrographs
for various purposes have been designed and built. With these technical resources,
and after suitable methods had been developed, a number of important projects
for research were taken up. The radiation processes of unstable atomic nuclei
and nuclear reactions of various kinds have been studied and exact measurements
made of the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei. Other projects tackled by Siegbahn
and his staff include the construction of an electron microscope of a new pattern
and an automatically working ruling-engine for scratching well-defined gratings
(with up to 1,800 lines per mm), especially for X-rays and the extreme ultraviolet
field. A large number of young scientists, including many from foreign countries,
have taken part in the progressively developed research work to study the atomic
nucleus and its radioactive properties.
Siegbahn travelled a great
deal and visited practically all important centres of scientific activity in Europe
(1908-1922), Canada and the United States (1924-1925), where he, on invitation
of the Rockefeller Foundation, gave lectures at the Universities of Columbia,
Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Chicago, Berkeley, Pasadena, Montreal, and several other
universities. After World War II, he visited the main nuclear research institutes
in the U.S.A. during the years 1946 and 1953 (Berkeley, Pasadena, Los Angeles,
St. Louis, Chicago, M.I.T. Boston, Brookhaven, Columbia, etc.).
As
member of the Commission Internationale des Poids et Mesures (1937) he took part
in annual meetings of this Commission in Paris; he was elected honorary member
of this Commission when he left his membership ( 1956). Siegbahn was President
of the International Union of Physics, during the period 1938-1947. Other honours,
in addition to the Nobel Prize in Physics (1924) awarded to Professor Siegbahn
included the Hughes Medal (1934) and the Rumford Medal (1940) from the Royal Society,
London; the Duddel Medal from the Physical Society, London (1948). He is honorary
doctor in Freiburg (1931), Bukarest (1942), Oslo (1946), Paris (1952) and the
Technical Faculty in Stockholm (1957). He is Member of the Royal Society, London
and Edinburgh, of the Academie des Sciences, Paris, and of several other academies.
Professor Siegbahn married Karin Högbom in 1914. They have two sons:
Bo (b. 1915), at present (1964) Ambassador at Marocco; and Kai (b. 1918), since
1954 Professor of Physics at the University of Uppsala, on the same Chair that
his father held during 1923-1937.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Manne Siegbahn died on September 26, 1978.
