Otto Stern

Otto Stern (17 February 1888 – 17 August 1969) was a German-American experimental physicist who pioneered the molecular beam method for investigating atomic and molecular properties and co-conducted the Stern-Gerlach experiment demonstrating space quantization of atomic angular momentum. Born in Sorau, Upper Silesia, Germany (now Żory, Poland), Stern earned his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Breslau in 1912 after studies in Heidelberg, Munich, and elsewhere. He advanced from Privatdozent positions in Zurich and Frankfurt to associate professor in Rostock and full professor directing the physics institute at the University of Hamburg from 1923 to 1933, where he verified Maxwell's velocity distribution law and measured subatomic magnetic moments using molecular beams. Facing persecution as a Jew under the Nazi regime, Stern emigrated to the United States in 1933, accepting a research professorship at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he continued proton magnetic moment experiments leading to his 1943 Nobel Prize in Physics for the molecular ray method and proton magnetic moment discovery. Stern retired in 1945, moving to Berkeley, California, as professor emeritus, and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Otto Stern was born on February 17, 1888, in Sohrau (now Żory), Upper Silesia, which was then part of the Kingdom of Prussia in the German Empire, into a prosperous Jewish family engaged in milling and grain merchandising. His parents were Solomon Stern, a miller and merchant, and Eugenie (also spelled Eugenia or Jennie) Rosenthal, from Rawitsch (now Rawicz, Poland).

Otto Stern was born on February 17, 1888, in Sohrau (now Żory, Poland), Upper Silesia, into a prosperous Jewish family engaged in milling and grain trade. His parents were Oskar Stern and Eugenie (née Rosenthal), who had married prior to his birth; Eugenie hailed from Rawitsch (now Rawicz, Poland). In 1892, the family relocated to Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), where Stern attended high school.

As the eldest of five children—comprising two brothers and three sisters—Stern grew up in a close-knit household that emphasized education amid a changing socio-political landscape for German Jews. Little is documented about his siblings' individual pursuits, though two sisters later settled in Berkeley, California, near Stern during his retirement years.