Did he deserve a Nobel Prize? Mieczysław Wolfke's ideas ahead of the time.
Creators
- 1. Optic and Photonic Division, Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology
Description
Mieczysław Wolfke, a Polish physicist born in 1883 in Łask, from childhood showed an extraordinary interest in science and technology as well as a predisposition to unprecedented imagination and intuition. At the age of 13, he developed the idea of a jet propulsion, and four years later he patented a wire-less telectroscope - a prototype of wireless television based on a modified Nipkov disk. During his doctoral dissertation on Ernst Abbe's theory, he mastered the theory of diffraction, which in 1920 allowed him to postulate the possibility of two-stage imaging by recording the spatial spectrum of an image and its reconstruction using radiation of a different wavelength. His work, crucial to the holographic technique, preceded the independently made discovery of Dennis Gabor, who was awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize for it, by more than 20 years. In the years 1913-1921 Wolfke participated in the quantum theory interpretations undertaken in Zurich (Albert Einstein, Max von Laue, Erwin Schroedinger), postulating that the energy modes of the black body cavity should be assigned the interpretation of multiple photons (light molecules). In 1924-1927 he collaborated with the Leiden Laboratory, where he proposed a method of solidifying helium under pressure and discovered liquid helium II, the world's first quantum liquid. Throughout his life, Wolfke dealt with problems close to the achievements awarded with the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, he himself did not live to see such a distinction, dying suddenly in 1947.
Files
wolke_nobel_en-19-01-2022.pdf
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Additional details
References
- K. Petelczyc, E. Kędzierska "Mieczysław Wolfke. Gdyby mi dali choć pół miliona", Warszawa 2018
- J. Szpecht "Wśród fizyków polskich", Lwów 1938
- A. K. Wróblewski "Historia fizyki", Warszawa 2006
- S. Lundqvist, "Nobel lectures", World Scientific, 1998
- Physikalische Zeitschrift. 21. 495-497
- Physikalische Zeitschrift. 22. 375-379
- Comm. Lab. Leiden. 171b