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[Mix] Rudolf L. Mossbauer (1929-2011)


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  • From: Nagy Denes Lajos <nagy AT rmki.kfki.hu>
  • To: MIX <mix AT lists.kfki.hu>
  • Subject: [Mix] Rudolf L. Mossbauer (1929-2011)
  • Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:36:36 +0200 (CEST)
  • List-archive: <http://mailman.kfki.hu/pipermail/mix>
  • List-id: Discussion journal of the Mossbauer Community <mix.lists.kfki.hu>


In Memoriam Rudolf L. Mößbauer

It is with deepest sadness that the International Board on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect (IBAME) announces the passing of its Honorary Member, the father of our method,

Professor Rudolf L. Mößbauer

Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

who died on 14 September 2011.


Rudolf Mößbauer was born in Munich. He graduated from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 1955 and prepared his PhD thesis in 1957-58 at the same university under the auspices of Heinz Maier-Leibnitz the latter work has been performed in Heidelberg, at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, though.

In his PhD work, he described and explained the recoilless nuclear fluorescence of gamma rays in 191Ir, i.e. the Mössbauer effect. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1961.

In 1960, Rudolf Mössbauer was invited to Caltech where he became a full professor in 1962. In 1964, he returned to TUM Munich where he was a full professor until 1997 when he became professor emeritus. From 1972 to 1977 he was the director of the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France and played an important role in introducing the user regime at the ILL high-flux reactor.

Although, since the mid-seventies, Mößbauer's interest has gradually shifted towards neutrino physics, he has never lost either scientific or personal contact to the Mössbauer effect and the international Mössbauer community, respectively. Even in the nineties he published papers on nuclear diffraction of Mössbauer radiation. He was a distinguished speaker of many Mössbauer conferences the last ICAME conferences with his participation being 1999 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and 2003 in Muscat, Oman.

Rudolf Mößbauer's role in Mössbauer spectroscopy, both with the discovery of the Mössbauer effect and also with his continuing interest, can hardly be overstated. The Mössbauer Community thanked him for his unsurpassable services by having elected him the first Honorary Member of IBAME.

We shall miss him. Our thoughts are with his family. The funeral services took place on Tuesday, 20 September 2011.

D.L. Nagy
Chair, IBAME

  • [Mix] Rudolf L. Mossbauer (1929-2011), Nagy Denes Lajos, 09/21/2011

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