PHYSICIST

Arnold Sommerfeld

1868 - 1951

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Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld (German: [ˈaʁnɔlt joˈhanəs ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈzɔmɐˌfɛlt]; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretical physics. He served as doctoral advisor and postdoc advisor to seven Nobel Prize winners and supervised at least 30 other famous physicists and chemists. Only J. J. Thomson's record of mentorship offers a comparable list of high-achieving students. He introduced the second quantum number, azimuthal quantum number, and the third quantum number, magnetic quantum number. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Arnold Sommerfeld is the 119th most popular physicist (down from 116th in 2019), the 109th most popular biography from Russia (up from 141st in 2019) and the 5th most popular Russian Physicist.

Arnold Sommerfeld is most famous for his contributions to quantum mechanics, as well as his work on atomic spectra.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Arnold Sommerfeld ranks 119 out of 851Before him are Jagadish Chandra Bose, Heinrich Rohrer, Walther Bothe, Peter Grünberg, Willis Lamb, and Ernst Ruska. After him are François Arago, Albert Fert, Owen Chamberlain, Anders Jonas Ångström, Joseph von Fraunhofer, and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1868, Arnold Sommerfeld ranks 14Before him are John Nance Garner, Abdulmejid II, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert Andrews Millikan, Constantine I of Greece, and Emanuel Lasker. After him are James Connolly, Gichin Funakoshi, Émile Bernard, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, Fuad I of Egypt, and Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse. Among people deceased in 1951, Arnold Sommerfeld ranks 8Before him are Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, André Gide, Philippe Pétain, Arnold Schoenberg, Ferdinand Porsche, and Wilhelm, German Crown Prince. After him are Abdullah I of Jordan, Otto Fritz Meyerhof, René Guénon, Hermann Broch, August Horch, and Sinclair Lewis.

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In Russia

Among people born in Russia, Arnold Sommerfeld ranks 109 out of 3,761Before him are Nikolai Bukharin (1888), Ilya Prigogine (1917), Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850), Nikolai Yezhov (1895), Mikhail Bakhtin (1895), and Mikhail Botvinnik (1911). After him are Tokhtamysh (1342), Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926), Mikhail Lermontov (1814), Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893), Yevgeny Prigozhin (1961), and Grigory Potemkin (1739).

Among PHYSICISTS In Russia

Among physicists born in Russia, Arnold Sommerfeld ranks 5Before him are Gustav Kirchhoff (1824), Wilhelm Wien (1864), Andrei Sakharov (1921), and Mikhail Lomonosov (1711). After him are Pavel Cherenkov (1904), Ilya Frank (1908), Igor Tamm (1895), Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (1928), Pyotr Kapitsa (1894), Vitaly Ginzburg (1916), and Nikolay Basov (1922).