Adolf Kratzer

Who was Adolf Kratzer?

B. Adolf Kratzer was a German theoretical physicist who made contributions to atomic physics and molecular physics, and was an authority on molecular band spectroscopy. He was born in Günzburg and died in Münster.

From 1912 to 1914, Kratzer studied physics at the Technische Hochschule München, and then he spent two years in the army, after which he began studies at the University of Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld. He was granted his doctor of philosophy in 1920; his thesis was on the band spectra of molecules. While at Munich, he was Sommerfeld’s assistant; he had been trained by Sommerfeld’s assistant and student Wilhelm Lenz to fill this role. While at Munich, Kratzer extended the theory of diatomic molecular spectroscopy by including anharmonic forces between the nuclei, which changed the oscillation frequencies. It was Sommerfeld’s practice to send some of his assistants to be personal assistants for physics to the mathematician David Hilbert, at the University of Göttingen. Kratzer was sent to Göttingen during the period 1920 to 1921.