Wilhelm Wien

Wilhelm Wien (January 13, 1864 - August 30, 1928) was a German physicist who, in 1893, used theories about heat and electromagnetism to compose Wien's Law, which relates the maximum emission of a blackbody to its temperature.

Max von Laue[?] wrote of Wien, "His immortal glory led us to the very gates of quantum physics".

Early Life

Wien was born at Fischhausen[?], in East Prussia as the son of landowner Carl Wien[?]. In 1866, his family moved to Drachstein[?], in Rastenburg[?], East Prussia.

Education

In 1879, Wien went to school in Rastenburg and from 1880-1882 he attended the city school of Heidelberg. In 1882 he attended the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin. From 1883-85, he worked in the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz and, in 1886, he received his Ph.D. with a thesis on the diffraction of light upon metals and on the influence of various materials upon the color of refracted light.