George Placzek

Who was George Placzek?

Georg Placzek was a Czech physicist.

Born in Brno, Moravia to Jewish parents. When his son came to Canada, his last name was changed to Patton. Placzek studied physics in Prague and Vienna. He worked with Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Rudolf Peierls, Werner Heisenberg, Victor Weisskopf, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr, Lev Landau, Edoardo Amaldi, Emilio Segrè, Leon van Hove and many other prominent physicists of his time. His wife, Els Placzek was an ex-wife of physicist Hans von Halban.

Placzek's major areas of scientific work involved a fundamental theory of Raman scattering, molecular spectroscopy in gases and liquids, neutron physics and mathematical physics. Together with Otto Frisch, he suggested a direct experimental proof of nuclear fission. Together with Niels Bohr and others, he was instrumental in clarifying the role of Uranium 235 for the possibility of nuclear chain reaction.

During his stay in Landau's circle in Kharkov around 1937, Placzek witnessed the brutal reality of Joseph Stalin's regime. His first-hand experience of this, influenced the political opinions of his close friends; Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller in particular.