Walter Bothe

Walter Bothe was born at Oranienburg, Germany, on 8th January, 1891. He studied physics under Max Planck at the University of Berlin (1908-12) and obtained his doctorate in 1914.

Bothe fought in the First World War during the First World War and was taken prisoner by the Russian Army on the Eastern Front. He was not released until 1920.

He taught at the Physikalisch-Technische Reinsanstalt and in 1929 he showed that the cosmic rays bombarding the Earth are composed not of photons but of massive particles.

Bothe was appointed professor of physics at the University of Giessen (1930-32), the University of Heidelberg (1932-34) and director of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research.

Walter Bothe, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954, died in 1959.