Arthur R. von Hippel
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Arthur Robert von Hippel (November 19, 1898 – December 31, 2003) was a German-American materials researcher and physicist and a pioneer in the study of dielectrics, ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials, as well as semiconductors. He was also one of the codevelopers of radar during the Second World War.
Von Hippel was born in Rostock, Germany, on November 19, 1898. He graduated in physics from the University of Göttingen, where he was taught by many eminent figures of mathematics and physics of the time, including David Hilbert, Richard Courant, Peter Debye, Robert Pohl, Max Born, Gustav Hertz, and Nobel prize winner James Franck (who was his thesis supervisor). Von Hippel received his Ph.D. in physics in 1924, and in 1927 married Franck's daughter, Dagmar.
In 1933, with the ascension of Nazis to power in Germany, von Hippel decided to move to another country, mainly because his wife was Jewish, but due also to his political stance against the new regime. Fortunately in 1934 he was able to secure a position with the University at Istanbul, Turkey, then spent a year in Denmark, working at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. In 1936, accepting an invitation by Karl Compton, von Hippel moved again, this time to the USA, and became an assistant professor at MIT in Massachusetts. In 1940 he founded the Laboratory for Insulation Research, which soon became one of the most important research and education centers in this area in the world.
Together with MIT's Radiation Lab, von Hippel and his collaborators helped to develop radar technology during the war. He was awarded the President's Certificate of Merit in 1948 by U.S. President Harry Truman. He became famous also for his discovery of ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of barium titanate (BaTiO2).
He was the author of the pioneering book Molecular Science and Molecular Engineering (1959). The term molecular engineering was coined by him in the 1950s, and he suggested the feasibility of constructing nanomolecular devices. The premier award of the Materials Research Society is named in his honor.
He died at 105 years of age, in 2003. His son, Eric von Hippel, is an MIT economist. His uncle, Eugen von Hippel described the ophthalmic hemangiomata that are part of von Hippel-Lindau disease, which bears his name.
