Ernst Lecher

Ernst Lecher (1 June 1856 – 19 July 1926) was an Austrian physicist who, from 1909, was head of the First Institute of Physics^[1] in Vienna. He is remembered for developing an apparatus— "Lecher lines"—to measure the wavelength and frequency of electromagnetic waves.^[2] He gave his name to the Ernst-Lecher-Institut, a radar research establishment set up in the 1940s in Reichenau, south of Vienna,^[3] which is now a part of the German research institute Max Planck Institute.

Ernst Lecher (1919)

Lecher's father, Zacharias K Lecher,^[4] was editor of Vienna's leading daily newspaper, Die Presse, and helped to publicise the discovery of X-rays of his German colleague Wilhelm Röntgen in 1896. Lecher's nephew, Konrad Zacharias Lorenz, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.^[5]

Publications

• Studie über elektr. Resonanzerscheinungen, 1890
• Lehrbuch der Physik für Mediziner und Biologen, 1912

References

1. Jagdish Mehra, Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory: V.1 Pt.2, p.73 et. seq., Springer, 2001, ISBN 0-387-95179-2, ISBN 978-0-387-95179-9 - some notes on the history of the First and Second Physical Institutes in Vienna
2. "Ernst Lecher", Encyclopedia of Austria (online extract) Archived 2012-07-24 at archive.today
3. "Henri Zemanek Interview", December 12, 1972, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977
4. "Röntgen: Invisible Rays that Save Lives" Archived 2008-10-28 at the Wayback Machine, CMC - Vellore - History of Medicine Picture Collection
5. John R. Krebs, Sverre Sjölander, Konrad Z. Lorenz For. Mem. R.S.(1903-1989), Konrad Lorenz Institute for Research on Evolution and Cognition ^{[permanent dead link]}