Page 47 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Chapter 2: Portrait of three founders of the ILL
Christine, Dorothée and Elisabeth. A son died as a baby. Madame Maier-Leibnitz was a very outgoing woman, very warm-hearted, without prejudices, and shared naturally excellent relationships with others. I remember her talking of the period of her life when she attended the fashion parades of the great Parisian couturiers and how she then reproduced from memory what she had seen. No mention of this aspect of his wife is given in the book of Anne-Lydia Edingshaus “Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Ein halbes Jahrhundert experimentelle Physik” published in 1986, which includes many more memories of Maier-Leibnitz. He was a little surprised about this; he was always uncompromising over ethics but he did know the value of his wife’s nature. I think a part of the success of M.L. in Grenoble was due to her.
I return to the scientific career of M.L. In 1942 he defended
his habilitation (professorial thesis) and was appointed Dozent
(lecturer) in Heidelberg. After the war he spent a year in the
USA. He was appointed to a special professorship in Heidelberg
in 1949, then, in 1952 he was given the post of Professor of
Technical Physics. In 1956 on behalf of the state of Bavaria he
negotiated the purchase of a swimming-pool reactor from the
USA. From this time onwards the field of neutron optics became
his prime activity. With his collaborators (Tasso Springer, Anton
Heidemann) he invented novel techniques40. These inventions
were of great importance in the design of instruments at the ILL,
and will be described here shortly. From then until his departure
in 1972 the story of M.L.’s life is linked with the story of the ILL.
In July 1971 his wife died from cancer. He was seen shaking with
sobs in his office by his secretary, Silvia Brügelmann. In truth he
40 These are described in detail by these two colleagues in an article published in 2002 after his death in December 2000 in the journal “Neutron News”, 13(1), p32-36 (2002), DOI 10.1080/10448630208222873.
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