Hedwig Kohn: a precursor of physics who escaped Nazism

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Today is celebrating the anniversary of the life of the pioneering physicist Hedwig Kohn, one of three women graduating from higher education before World War II.

Hedwig Kohn was born in 1887 in Wroclaw, Poland. He entered the university in 1907, just one year before women could do it, and earned a PhD in physics in 1913, becoming a pioneer of university education.

However, as a Jewish woman living in Nazi Germany, Kohn was denied the teaching post in 1933, which led her to spend the next few years completing research contracts in physics. industrial before escaping, in 1940, for EE. Where he returned to his pbadion.

There, she devoted herself until 1952 to teach at the Women's College of the University of North Carolina and at Wellesley College, Mbadachusetts. After retiring from teaching, Kohn turned to research.

Over the course of his career, Kohn's work has resulted in more than 20 publications, a patent and hundreds of pages of textbooks used to introduce students to the field of radiometry (a set of techniques designed to measure electromagnetic radiation). , including visible light) around the world.