Walther Ritz

Who was Walther Ritz?

Walther Ritz was a Swiss theoretical physicist.

His father, Raphael Ritz, a native of Valais, was a well-known landscape and interior scenes artist. His mother was the daughter of the engineer Noerdlinger of Tübingen. Ritz studied in Zurich and Göttingen. He is most famous for his work with Johannes Rydberg on the Rydberg–Ritz combination principle. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the Ritz method. Ritz died in 1909, at the age of 31. According to Forman's Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Ritz contracted tuberculosis in 1900, which led to his death in 1909. According to Ritz's collected works the disease was pleurisy.