Victor Conrad
Encyclopedia
Victor Conrad was an Austrian
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

-American physicist, seismologist and meteorologist. He was the first director of the Austrian seismological service, and a reputed academician of international accomplishment. He was politically victimized twice, in 1919 for his ethnicity and in 1934 as a socialist. He emigrated to the United States in 1938, continuing his academic career in New York, California and at Cambridge. Conrad’s scientific work is documented in more than 240 papers concerning meteorology, climatology and seismology. He first deduced the continental crust
Continental crust
The continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. This layer is sometimes called sial due to more felsic, or granitic, bulk composition, which lies in...

 transition structure what is now named the Conrad discontinuity
Conrad discontinuity
The Conrad discontinuity corresponds to the sub-horizontal plane that takes place in the continental crust in which the seismic wave velocity increases in discontinuous mode...

.

Studies and early seismology work in Vienna

Victor Conrad was born on August 25, 1876 in Hütteldorf
Hütteldorf
Hütteldorf is a part of Vienna's 14th district, Penzing. It is located in the west of Vienna, but roughly in the geographical center of the district, stretching roughly from Deutschordenstraße in the east to Wolf in der Au in the west, where Hütteldorf borders Hadersdorf-Weidlingau.Hütteldorf is...

, Lower Austria
Lower Austria
Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...

 (then a suburb and now part of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

). His father, an industrialist, was also an amateur painter of landscapes.

Conrad attended the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

 where he initially studied biology. In 1896, when he started working on his degree Conrad’s teacher, the physiologist Sigmund Exner
Sigmund Exner
Sigmund Exner-Ewarten was an Austrian physiologist who was a native of Vienna. He was the son of philosopher Franz Serafin Exner , and had three renowned brothers; law professor Adolf Exner , physicist Karl Exner and physicist Franz Exner .He studied in Vienna under Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke ,...

, realized his pupil's talent for experimental work, and encouraged Conrad to take up the study of physics. Following a suggestion of Franz S. Exner
Franz S. Exner
Franz Serafin Exner was an Austrian physicist.-Life:Exner comes from one of the most important university families of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The same Exner family includes Adolf Exner, Karl Exner, Sigmund Exner, and Marie von Frisch. Exner the youngest of five children of parents Franz...

 he began to work on problems concerning atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network . The Earth's surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit...

 and obtained his doctorate in 1900. Conrad became a University assistant at the “K.K. Centralanstalt für Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus” (the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics) in 1901, mostly working at the Sonnblick high-altitude observatory for the next three years. In 1904, when the Seismological Service of Austria was established, Conrad was appointed head of the new department and became responsible for the seismic monitoring on Austrian territory. Among his first programs was a microseismic survey in 1905.

Professor at Czernowitz and Vienna

In 1910 Conrad accepted a newly created chair for "cosmic physics" at the University of Czernowitz
Chernivtsi University
The Chernivtsi National University is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in northern Bukovina, in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine....

 (now Chernivtsi
Chernivtsi
Chernivtsi is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine. The city is situated on the upper course of the River Prut, a tributary of the Danube, in the northern part of the historic region of Bukovina, which is currently divided between Romania and Ukraine...

 in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) which at this time belonged to Austria-Hungary's Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...

 region, and had native German speakers accounting for more than half of its students.
From January 1915 to October 1918, during World War I, he was a director of Meteorological and Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, Serbia.
After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy at the end of World War I the university was rumanized and Conrad was forced to leave Czernowitz at the end of July 1919, losing not only his professorship but also his private assets. He returned to his former position at the Central Meteorological Institute and later as a full professor at Vienna. During his analyses of two earthquakes that occurred in Austria in 1923 and 1927 he discovered what is today known as the Conrad discontinuity
Conrad discontinuity
The Conrad discontinuity corresponds to the sub-horizontal plane that takes place in the continental crust in which the seismic wave velocity increases in discontinuous mode...

, considered to be the border between the upper and the lower continental crust.

Emigration and further career

As a member of Austria's socialist party, Conrad faced political discrimination after the brief and decisive Austrian Civil War
Austrian Civil War
The Austrian Civil War , also known as the February Uprising , is a term sometimes used for a few days of skirmishes between socialist and conservative-fascist forces between 12 February and 16 February 1934, in Austria...

. On April 30, 1934 he was put on leave with waiting pay. He retired in 1936, and emigrated to the United States in 1938 where he once again brought his career to bloom, 1940-1942 at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, then at the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

, the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, and finally (from 1944) at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 from where he retired in 1951.

The Conrad observatory

When Victor Conrad died at Cambridge in 1962, his widow Ida bequeathed the majority of the couple's assets to the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, on the condition that the funds be used to establish a research institution bearing her late husband's name. This took place in the form of the Conrad Observatory for Seismology, situated about 50 km from Vienna near Gutenstein. Its module for seismology and gravimetry
Gravimetry
Gravimetry is the measurement of the strength of a gravitational field. Gravimetry may be used when either the magnitude of gravitational field or the properties of matter responsible for its creation are of interest...

, became operational in 2002; the final module, for geomagnetic
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's inner core to where it meets the solar wind, a stream of energetic particles emanating from the Sun...

 research, is still under construction in 2009.

Biographies

  • Steinhauser H, Toperczer M. Obituarium: Victor Conrad. Arch. Met. Geophys. Biokl 1962; 13, 283-289

External links

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