Karl Bechert - Scientific Career

Scientific Career

From 1920 to 1925, Bechert studied physics and mathematics at the University of Munich, in the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He received his doctor of philosophy under Arnold Sommerfeld, in 1925. Under a fellowship of the Rockefeller Foundation, from 1925 to 1926, he accomplished postdoctoral studies and research at the Physics Institute of the University of Madrid. From 1926 to 1933, he was an assistant to Sommerfeld, completing his Habilitation in 1930 and becoming a Privatdozent.

While working for his Ph.D., Bechert helped Sommerfeld extend the Bohr model of the atom and determine the atomic cobalt and vanadium energy terms from their respective spectra. He worked in collaboration with Miguel Ángel Catalán and Ludwig August Sommer. His thesis was on the structure of atomic nickel spectra.

In 1933 he was called as an ordinarius professor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Giessen. From 1945 to 1946, he was rector at the university. He remained at Giessen until 1946, whereupon he was called as ordinarius professor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where he remained until his retirement in 1969. He was also a member of the State Commission for School Questions on Lecture Courses at Mainz.

From 1942 to 1948, Bechert was chairman of the Hesse District Association of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. In 1963, he was elected as a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences.

Bechert co-authored a number of books with Christian Gerthsen.