Victor Schumann

Victor Schumann
Born 1841
Leipzig
Died September 1, 1913
Fields Physics
Known for Discovered the vacuum ultraviolet

Victor Schumann (1841 September 1, 1913) was a physicist and spectroscopist who in 1893 discovered the vacuum ultraviolet.

Schumann wished to study the "Extreme Ultraviolet" region. For this, he used a prism and lenses in fluorite instead of quartz [1] allowing himself to be the first to measure spectra below 200 nm. Oxygen gas would absorb the radiation with a wavelength below 195 nm but Schumann placed the entire apparatus under vacuum. He prepared his own photographic plates with a reduced layer of gelatin.

He published on the Hydrogen line in the spectrum of Nova Aurigae and in the spectrum of vacuum tubes.[2]

His work opened the way to atomic emission spectroscopy, leading eventually to the discovery of the hydrogen spectral lines series (Lyman series) by Theodore Lyman in 1914.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Lyman, T. (1914), "Victor Schumann", Astrophysical Journal 38: 1–4, Bibcode:1914ApJ....39....1L, doi:10.1086/142050
  2. Schumann V, Astronomy and astrophysics, Volume 12, Carleton College (Northfield, Minn.). Goodsell Observatory