Max Steenbeck
Encyclopedia
Max Christian Theodor Steenbeck (21 March 1904 in Kiel
– 15 December 1981 in East Berlin
) was a German
physicist who worked at the Siemens-Schuckertwerke
in his early career, during which time he invented the betatron
in 1934. He was taken to the Soviet Union
after World War II
, and he contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project
. In 1955, he returned to East Germany to continue a career in nuclear physics
.
and chemistry
at the University of Kiel
from 1922 to 1927. He completed his thesis on x-rays under Walther Kossel
; he submitted the thesis in 1927/1928 and his doctorate was awarded in January 1929.
While a student at Kiel, he formulated the concept of the cyclotron
.
in Berlin
. From 1934, he was a laboratory director, and it was in that year that he submitted a patent for the betatron
. In 1943, he was appointed technical director of a static converter plant at Siemens, conducting research in gas-discharge physics. Additionally, at his plant, he was head of the Volkssturm
(peoples’ army), the organized civilian resistance at the plant, which was to, as a last resort, defend the territory.
he was arrested by the Soviet military forces, and he was incarcerated at a concentration camp in Poznań
. He wrote to the NKVD
and explained his scientific background. Eventually, he was taken to recuperate at the dacha Opalicha at the end of 1945, after which he was sent to work at Manfred von Ardenne’s
Institute A, in Sinop, a suburb of Sukhumi
. He headed a group working on both electromagnetic and centrifugal
isotope separation
for the enrichment of uranium
, with the latter having the highest priority. Steenbeck and his group were pioneers in the development of supercritical centrifuges. Steenbeck’s group, at its largest, included from 60 to 100 German and Russian personnel. Steenbeck was kept in the Soviet Union until 1956, when he went to East Germany.
While Steenbeck developed the theory of the centrifugal isotope separation process, Gernot Zippe
, an Austrian
, headed the experimental effort in Steenbeck’s group. Zippe, a POW from the Krasnogorsk
camp, joined the group in the summer of 1946. Zippe returned to Germany in 1956. In 1957, he attended a conference on centrifugal isotope separation; it was then that he realized how advanced the work had been in Steenbeck’s group, and Zippe then applied for a patent on short-bowl centrifuge technology, known as the Zippe-type centrifuge
. He was invited to repeat the experiments at the University of Virginia
. Shortly after completing the work, at the request of the United States, all centrifuge research in Germany became classified on August 1, 1960. The work of Steenbeck and Zippe shaped Europe
an and Japan
ese enrichment processes and later those in Pakistan
and Iraq
.
Steenbeck and Zippe, before being allowed to leave the Soviet Union, were put into quarantine in the second half of 1952. During the quarantine period, they only performed unclassified work. First they went to Leningrad
, after which they worked in the Institute of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences in Kiev
. They both left the Soviet Union in 1956.
, and, from 1956 to 1959, he was also director of the Institute for Magnetic Materials at Jena
. From 1958 to 1969, he was director of the German Academy of Science Institute for Magnetohydrodynamics
, also in Jena. From 1957 to 1963, he was the head of the Technological Science Bureau on Reactor Construction, in Berlin. From 1962 to 1964, he was vice-president and in 1965 president of the German Academy of Science. In 1970, he was president of the East German Committee on European Security. In 1976, Steenbeck was honorary president of the East German Research Council.
The Max-Steenbeck Gymnasium in Cottbus, an academic high school offering extended mathematical-scientific-technical training, was named in his honor. .
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
– 15 December 1981 in East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
physicist who worked at the Siemens-Schuckertwerke
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
in his early career, during which time he invented the betatron
Betatron
A betatron is a cyclotron developed by Donald Kerst at the University of Illinois in 1940 to accelerate electrons, but the concepts ultimately originate from Rolf Widerøe and previous development occurred in Germany through Max Steenbeck in the 1930s. The betatron is essentially a transformer with...
in 1934. He was taken to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and he contributed to the Soviet atomic bomb project
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
. In 1955, he returned to East Germany to continue a career in nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
.
Education
Steenbeck studied physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
at the University of Kiel
University of Kiel
The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...
from 1922 to 1927. He completed his thesis on x-rays under Walther Kossel
Walther Kossel
Walther Ludwig Julius Kossel was a German physicist known for his theory of the chemical bond , Sommerfeld–Kossel displacement law of atomic spectra, the Kossel-Stranski model for crystal growth, and the Kossel effect...
; he submitted the thesis in 1927/1928 and his doctorate was awarded in January 1929.
While a student at Kiel, he formulated the concept of the cyclotron
Cyclotron
In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction...
.
Early years
From 1927 to 1945, Steenbeck was a physicist at the Siemens-SchuckertwerkeSiemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. From 1934, he was a laboratory director, and it was in that year that he submitted a patent for the betatron
Betatron
A betatron is a cyclotron developed by Donald Kerst at the University of Illinois in 1940 to accelerate electrons, but the concepts ultimately originate from Rolf Widerøe and previous development occurred in Germany through Max Steenbeck in the 1930s. The betatron is essentially a transformer with...
. In 1943, he was appointed technical director of a static converter plant at Siemens, conducting research in gas-discharge physics. Additionally, at his plant, he was head of the Volkssturm
Volkssturm
The Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II. It was founded on Adolf Hitler's orders on October 18, 1944 and conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard.-Origins and...
(peoples’ army), the organized civilian resistance at the plant, which was to, as a last resort, defend the territory.
In the Soviet Union
At the close of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he was arrested by the Soviet military forces, and he was incarcerated at a concentration camp in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
. He wrote to the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and explained his scientific background. Eventually, he was taken to recuperate at the dacha Opalicha at the end of 1945, after which he was sent to work at Manfred von Ardenne’s
Manfred von Ardenne
Manfred von Ardenne was a German research and applied physicist and inventor. He took out approximately 600 patents in fields including electron microscopy, medical technology, nuclear technology, plasma physics, and radio and television technology...
Institute A, in Sinop, a suburb of Sukhumi
Sukhumi
Sukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. The city suffered heavily during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990s.-Naming:...
. He headed a group working on both electromagnetic and centrifugal
Centrifuge
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by an electric motor , that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis...
isotope separation
Isotope separation
Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes, for example separating natural uranium into enriched uranium and depleted uranium. This is a crucial process in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power stations, and is...
for the enrichment of uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
, with the latter having the highest priority. Steenbeck and his group were pioneers in the development of supercritical centrifuges. Steenbeck’s group, at its largest, included from 60 to 100 German and Russian personnel. Steenbeck was kept in the Soviet Union until 1956, when he went to East Germany.
While Steenbeck developed the theory of the centrifugal isotope separation process, Gernot Zippe
Gernot Zippe
Gernot Zippe , was a Austrian-German mechanical engineer who is widely held responsible for leading the team which developed the Zippe-type centrifuge, a centrifuge machine for the collection of 235U in Soviet Union....
, an Austrian
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, headed the experimental effort in Steenbeck’s group. Zippe, a POW from the Krasnogorsk
Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast
Krasnogorsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnogorsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, adjacent to the northwestern boundary of Moscow, on the Moskva River...
camp, joined the group in the summer of 1946. Zippe returned to Germany in 1956. In 1957, he attended a conference on centrifugal isotope separation; it was then that he realized how advanced the work had been in Steenbeck’s group, and Zippe then applied for a patent on short-bowl centrifuge technology, known as the Zippe-type centrifuge
Zippe-type centrifuge
The Zippe-type centrifuge is a device designed to collect Uranium-235. It was developed in the Soviet Union by a team of 60 Austrian and German scientists captured after World War II, working in detention...
. He was invited to repeat the experiments at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. Shortly after completing the work, at the request of the United States, all centrifuge research in Germany became classified on August 1, 1960. The work of Steenbeck and Zippe shaped Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese enrichment processes and later those in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Steenbeck and Zippe, before being allowed to leave the Soviet Union, were put into quarantine in the second half of 1952. During the quarantine period, they only performed unclassified work. First they went to Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
, after which they worked in the Institute of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. They both left the Soviet Union in 1956.
Return to Germany
In 1956, Steenbeck became an ordinarius professor of plasma physics at the Friedrich Schiller University of JenaFriedrich Schiller University of Jena
Friedrich Schiller University of Jena , is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany....
, and, from 1956 to 1959, he was also director of the Institute for Magnetic Materials at Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
. From 1958 to 1969, he was director of the German Academy of Science Institute for Magnetohydrodynamics
Magnetohydrodynamics
Magnetohydrodynamics is an academic discipline which studies the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such fluids include plasmas, liquid metals, and salt water or electrolytes...
, also in Jena. From 1957 to 1963, he was the head of the Technological Science Bureau on Reactor Construction, in Berlin. From 1962 to 1964, he was vice-president and in 1965 president of the German Academy of Science. In 1970, he was president of the East German Committee on European Security. In 1976, Steenbeck was honorary president of the East German Research Council.
The Max-Steenbeck Gymnasium in Cottbus, an academic high school offering extended mathematical-scientific-technical training, was named in his honor. .
Selected Literature
- W. Kossel and M. Steenbeck Absolute Messung des Quantenstroms im Röntgenstrahl, Zeitschrift für Physik Volume 42, Numbers 11-12, 832-834 (1927). The authors were cited as being from the Physikalisches Institut, Kiel. The article was received on 14. March 1927.
- Alfred von Engel and Max Steenbeck On the Gas-Temperature in the Positive Column of an Arc Phys. Rev. Volume 37, Issue 11, 1554 - 1554 (1931). The authors were cited as being at Wissenschaftliche Abteilung, der Siemens-Schuckertwerke A.-G., Berlin. The article was received on 28 April 1931.
Books
- Max Steenbeck Probleme und Ergebnisse der Elektro- und Magnetohydrodynamik (Akademie-Verl., 1961)
- Max Steenbeck, Fritz Krause, and Karl-Heinz Rädler Elektrodynamische Eigenschaften turbulenter Plasmen (Akademie-Verl., 1963)
- Max Steenbeck Wilhelm Wien und sein Einfluss auf die Physik seiner Zeit (Akademie-Verl., 1964)
- Max Steenbeck Die wissenschaftlich-technische Entwicklung und Folgerungen für den Lehr- und Lernprozess im System der Volksbildung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (VEB Verl. Volk u. Wissen, 1964)
- Max Steenbeck Wachsen und Wirken der sozialistischen Persönlichkeit in der wissenschaftlich-technischen Revolution (Dt. Kulturbund, 1968)
- Max Steenbeck Impulse und Wirkungen. Schritte auf meinem Lebensweg. (Verlag der Nation, 1977)
External links
- Lawrence and His Laboratory - II — A Million Volts or Bust in Heilbron, J. L., and Robert W. Seidel Lawrence and His Laboratory: A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory', Volume I. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)
- Tracking the technology – Nuclear Engineering International, 31 August 2004
- NYT – William J. Broad Slender and Elegant, It Fuels the Bomb, New York Times March 23, 2004