Georg Hermann Quincke

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Georg Hermann Quincke (November 19, 1834 – January 13, 1924) was a German physicist.

Born at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, he received his Ph. D. in 1858 at Berlin, having previously studied also at Königsberg and at Heidelberg. He became privatdocent at Berlin in 1859, was appointed professor in the University of Würzburg in 1872, and in 1875 was called to be professor of physics at Heidelberg, where he remained until his retirement in 1907. His doctor's dissertation was on the subject of the capillary constant of mercury, and his investigations of all capillary phenomena are classical. He also did important work in the experimental study of the reflection of light, especially from metallic surfaces, and carried on prolonged researches on the subject of the influence of electric forces upon the constants of different forms of matter, modifying the dissociation hypothesis of Clausius. Quincke received a D. C. L. from Oxford and an LL. D. from Cambridge and from Glasgow and was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of London. His contributions to physics and other fields of science are numerous. He published also a Geschichte des physicalischen Instituts der Universitüt Heidelberg (1885).

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.