Birthday profile

Walther Gerlach

Walter Gerlach, German physicist and academic (died 1979)

Born
August 1, 1889
Died
August 10, 1979
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1889

About Walther Gerlach

Walther Gerlach was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect. The experiment was conceived by Otto Stern in 1921 and successfully conducted first by Gerlach in early 1922. He was Nazi Germany's plenipotentiary of nuclear physics from December 1943 until his capture by US Army in May 1945. Walther Gerlach (1 August 1889 – 10 August 1979) was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect. Gerlach became a Privatdozent at the University of Tübingen in 1916.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Walther Gerlach timeline

  1. Walther Gerlach (1 August 1889 – 10 August 1979) was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect.
  2. Gerlach became a Privatdozent at the University of Tübingen in 1916.
  3. The experiment was conceived by Otto Stern in 1921 and successfully conducted first by Gerlach in early 1922.

The world when Walther Gerlach was born

Walther Gerlach was born in 1889. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineEiffel Tower opens for Paris World's Fair
  • Technology milestoneEiffel Tower — world's tallest structure
  • World population~1.49B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderBenjamin Harrison
  • U.S. population58.6M

1889 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Walther Gerlach's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18892026
Population58.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.