Physicist and chemist, born in Maastricht, The Netherlands. He held a series of teaching posts at Swiss, Dutch, and German universities while he pursued his research in physical chemistry. In 191213 he introduced the concept of the molecular electric dipole moment, which led to new understandings of ionization and molecular structure, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1936). He emigrated to the USA (1940) and headed the chemistry department at Cornell University (194050), where he concentrated on research in the light-scattering process..
| Peter Debye | |
|---|---|
| Peter Joseph William Debye | |
| Born |
March 24, 1884 Maastricht, Netherlands |
| Died |
November 2, 1966 Ithaca, New York |
Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije (March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch physical chemist.
Early life
Peter "Pie" Debye was born in Maastricht and after attending local schools in Maastricht went to the University of Aachen, Germany, only 30 km from Maastricht, in 1901. At Aachen he studied under the theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, who later claimed that his most important discovery was Peter Debye.
In 1906, Sommerfeld received an appointment at Munich, and took Debye with him as his assistant.
In 1911, when Albert Einstein took an appointment as a professor at Prague, Debye took his old professorship at Zürich.
Scientific contributions prior to the Nobel Prize
His first major scientific contribution was the application of the concept of dipole moment to the charge distribution in asymmetric molecules in 1912, developing equations relating dipole moments to temperature, dielectric constant, debye relaxation, etc.His Nobel Prize
In 1936, Debye was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (entry at nobelprize.org) "for his contributions to the study of molecular structure," primarily referring to his work on dipole moments and X-ray diffraction.
War years
From 1934 to 1939 Debye was director of the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. In January 2006, documents surfaced in a publication by Sybe Rispens claiming that in this period, Debye was actively involved in cleansing German science institutions from Jewish and other "non-Aryan elements". Heil Hitler!
Interestingly, an article describing this same letter in more detail and presenting a very favorable picture of Peter Debye in his efforts to resist the Nazi activists had already been published in 1988.
Because of this letter and perhaps due to long standing professional competition, Albert Einstein actively tried to prevent Debye from being appointed in the United States. Nevertheless, Debye was offered a chance to give a series of lectures at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and he traveled to the United States of America. After leaving Germany in early 1940, Peter Debye remained at Cornell University until his death in 1966.
Other biographies published before Rispens' work, state that Debye moved to the US because he refused to accept German citizenship forced on to him by the Nazis. Although his son already was in the US before he departed, Peter Debye's 19 year old daughter and sister-in-law did not leave.
On 23 June 1941 he is alleged to have sent a telegram to Berlin informing his employers that he was able and willing to resume his responsibilities at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, presumably in order to maintain his leave of absence and keep the Berlin house and wages available for the support of his daughter.
It has been well documented in many biographies and also in Rispens book that Peter Debye and Dutch colleagues helped his Jewish colleague Lise Meitner in 1938-1939 (at great risk to himself and his family) cross the Dutch-German border to escape Nazi prosecution and eventually landing a position in Sweden. According to his son Debye just wanted to do his job at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and that as long as the Nazis did not bother him he was able to do so.
In an opinion article published on the Debye Institute website, Dr. Gijs van Ginkel, Senior Managing Director of the VM Debye Instituut in Utrecht deplored this decision. He also argues that when Debye in 1950 received the Max Planck medal of the DPG, nobody objected not even somebody like the fellow physicist and known opponent of the national socialists Max von Laue who would be in a position to object.
The Maastricht University is reconsidering its position on the Peter Debye Prijs voor natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek (Peter Debye Prize for scientific research)
In a reply on the DPG website, Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker also conclude that Debye was not a Nazi activist. They quote the response of the Reich University Teachers League (a National Socialist organization) to the Debye letter:
Obviously the German Physical Society is still very backward and still clings tightly to their dear Jews. It is in fact remarkable that only "because of circumstances beyond our control" the membership of Jews can no longer be maintained
In May 2006, the Dutch Nobel Prize winner Martinus Veltman who had written the foreword to the Rispen book, renounced the book's description of Peter Debye, withdrew his foreword, and asked the Board of Director's of Utrecht University to rescind their decision to rename the Debye Institute. The report of the Cornell investigation, released on 31 May 2006, states that:
Based on the information to-date, we have not found evidence supporting the accusations that Debye was a Nazi sympathizer or collaborator or that he held anti-Semitic views. It is important that this be stated clearly since these are the most serious allegations.
It goes on to declare:
Thus, based on the information, evidence and historical record known to date, we believe that any action that dissociates Debye's name from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell is unwarranted.
In June 2006 it was reported that the scientific director of the (formerly) Debye Institute had been reprimanded by the Board of Directors of the University of Utrecht for a new publication on Debye's war years on the grounds that it is was too personally biased with respect to the institutes naming dispute. According to the board the book should not have been published as a Debye Institute publication but as a personal one. The book was banned by the University of Utrecht and both Directors of the (former) Debye Institute were forbidden to have any further contact with the press.
Later life
Debye ended up staying at Cornell, became a professor (and, for 10 years, chairman of the chemistry department, and member of Alpha Chi Sigma) there, and in 1946 became an American citizen. Unlike the European phase of his life, where Debye moved from city to city every few years, in the United States he remained at Cornell for the whole remainder of his career.
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