Page 44 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
2.2 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (1911- 2000)
Hermann Heinrich (Heinz)
Maier-Leibnitz was born in 1911
in Esslingen on the Neckar, a
pretty medium-sized town (90,000
inhabitants in 1995), just east of
Stuttgart. Leibnitz was his mothers
maiden name, a distant relation of
the great scientist and philosopher
Leibniz. It is common practice in
Germany to attach a second name
when the surname is as common as
Maier, and this is what the father
of M.L. had done. I remember that
Maier-Leibnitz was very proud
to bear this name. His father was a professor at the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) of Stuttgart. One of his uncles, Dr Reinhold Maier, a politician in the FDP, was the President
of Baden-Wurttemberg. He, himself, did his graduate studies
at Stuttgart at the Technical University where his father taught. The course included a 6 month industrial internship in a foundry. After graduating he moved to Göttingen in 1931. This university was the Mecca of Natural Sciences (Naturwissenschaften), and the staff included, amongst others, Max Born, James Franck, Hermann Weyl, Ludwig Prandtl and Richard Courant. James Franck, Nobel Laureate in 1925 took him on as a thesis student.
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Fig. 2.2: Hermann Heinrich MAIER-LEIBNITZ