Heinrich Rubens

Heinrich Rubens (1865 to 1922) was a German experimental physicist known for his measurements of the energy of black-body radiation, which led Max Planck to the discovery of his radiation law, the genesis of quantum theory. After the Wöhlerschule in Frankfurt am Main he began in 1884 to study electrical engineering at institutes of technology in Darmstadt and Berlin, switched to physics at the University of Berlin, spent a semester at Strasbourg and followed August Kundt back to Berlin, where he took his doctorate in 1888. He was an assistant at the physics institute from 1890 to 1896, habilitated in 1892, and in 1896 became docent at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg. In 1900, working at the nearby Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, he made his important black-body measurements and was promoted to professor. After Paul Drude died in 1906 the Berlin chair and the directorship of the physics institute went to Rubens; he received the Rumford Medal in 1910, and Max Planck said that without his intervention the radiation law might have arisen in quite a different manner.