Lucy Mensing’s reminscences

In 1989, Lucy Schütz wrote down some fragmentary recollections of her short career in physics in the 1920s. Oddly, she didn’t write much about her extremely successful year in Göttingen, focusing instead on the frustrating year in Tübingen that followed.

Transcription by Gernot Münster
Translation and annotations by Michel Janssen

[page 1]

Original German

Rückerinnerung Jan. 89
Mein Dr. Diplom
Hamburg 30. März 1925
Die Prüfung wurde vorverlegt, weil
ich auf der Göttinger Tagung über meine Dr.
Arbeit vortragen sollte.
Ich erhielt eine Prämie von 500 M.
Da ich das Leben bei der Göttinger Tagung
kennengelernt hatte (viel mehr Kontakte
zwischen Professoren u. Studenten) [in the margin:
Verhältnis von Profess, Assistenten u. Studenten] benutzte
ich das Geld (die Prämie) für ein weiteres Studienjahr
in Göttingen, kam Ostern 1925 gerade zu der Zeit,
als die neue Quantentheorie durch
Heisenberg begonnen hatte. Interessante
Zeit! in der Physik! Ich aß mit Heißenberg und Hund zu Mittag.
Ostern 1926 zurück nach Hamburg, wollte ich
mich aufs Staatsexamen vorbereiten.
Da bekam ich ein Angebot von
Landé, zu ihm als Assistentin zu
kommen nach Tübingen. Er hätte

English translation

Reminiscences, January 1989

My PhD diploma: Hamburg, March 30, 1925

The exam was moved to an earlier date because I was supposed to give a talk about my dissertation at the Göttingen meeting [probably the meeting of a local chapter (Gauverein Niedersachsen) of the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft) in February 1925]

I received a premium of 500 Mark. Since I had become acquainted with life in Göttingen at the meeting (a lot more contact between professors and students [in the margin: relations between professors, assistants and students]), I used the prize money for an additional year of study in Göttingen. I arrived at Easter 1925, right around the time that the new quantum theory started with Heisenberg. Interesting time! in physics! I used to have lunch with Heisenberg and Hund.

Easter 1926, back in Hamburg, I wanted to prepare for the state exam [to get a teaching license].

Then I got an offer from Landé to become his assistant in Tübingen. He had

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a position financed by the Emergency Association [of German Science (Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft)].

I then went to Tübingen in August 1926. In Hamburg, Pauli had suggested to me to calculate the Ramsauer effect (large cross section of noble gas atoms (?!)) using the new quantum mechanics.

The situation in Tübingen was as follows: Gerlach ruled the institute; he had about 25– 28 doctoral students. His only assistant was Schütz. Landé, the associate professor, had a room on the ground floor, in which a second desk was placed for me. As a common room [continued in the margin:] there was the reading room next to the library, which was so small that sometimes two Japanese students studied their books in a squatting position! which I marveled at!

Then there was some office space for Dr. Back, an overly modest person, definitely older than Gerlach, who would always apologize to the students whenever he had to give one of Gerlach’s lectures. He had done an important experiment, in the field of optics I believe [interlineated: Paschen–Back effect]. The reason he was so inhibited was probably

[page 3]

[in the margin: “I now remember again: the Paschen–Back effect,”]

that he actually was a lawyer, who had developed an interest in physics and, even though he had not finished his physics education, was given a position by Paschen, which he then kept under Gerlach.

After his late morning lectures, Gerlach often came to Landé to chat: “Always right when I have to prepare my lectures,” Landé used to say to me.

Landé was working on a book on theoretical physics, from which I read the newer chapters and about which I would say or ask something every once in a while (did it appear? 27/28 29?).

Other than that, I worked on my problem [the Ramsauer effect]. It led to complicated mathematical functions (not tabulated). It was a tedious work calculating this and it did not lead to any usable result. Pauli was in Switzerland at the time, so it was impossible to visit him and get his advice. Landé did not understand any of it. Why did I not write to Pauli???

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The first collision between G[erlach] and L[andé] that I experienced happened after a meet- ing in Stuttgart. G. took a taxi on the way back and took Landé and me, among others,49 with him. L. asked to get out at his place, which G. refused because of the many loose pieces of luggage still lying in the car. Some irritated back and forth ensued but G. did not relent. Whether there were any further, more substantial differences, earlier or later, I do not know. L. no longer set foot in the institute and worked from home (“Never mind that he could not talk to his assistant this way!”)

Early 28, Landé got an invitation to the USA (for one year? he rented out his apartment furnished). I went home to Hamburg, wrote up the negative result of my work and sent it to the Zeitschrift für Physik. It appeared in summer 28, followed directly by a paper tackling the same theme successfully

[Mensing’s paper on the Ramsauer effect actually appeared in the fall of 1927: Lucy Mensing, “Zur Theorie des Zusammenstoßes von Atomen mit langsamen Elektronen.” Zeitschrift für Physik 45 (1927) 603–609. doi.org/10.1007/BF01331923. ]

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by a professor in Stockholm with several assistants and a calculating machine, and certainly with a new idea about the force field.

[Hilding Faxén and Johan Peter Holtsmark, “Beitrag zur Theorie des Durchganges langsamer Elektronen durch Gase.” Zeitschrift für Physik 45 (1927) 307–324. doi.org/10.1007/BF01343053. ]

W. Schütz and I got married in September 1928 in the fall. The next day, I read in the paper that Wilhelm Wien had died and said: “now Gerlach will become his successor.” And that indeed happened. At the end of 1929, Gerlach and the two of us moved to Munich. Whether or when Landé returned to Tübingen in 1929 I don’t remember. I did hear, however, that he got a call to the USA. Maybe he only dissolved his household in Tübingen in 1930? and went back again to the USA? I only remember a letter to my husband or some other physicists [in the margin:] probably from 1933 at a conference in Berlin, saying “he was pleased that we all live in such harmony in Germany these days!”

[page 6a]

I had already thought earlier: How lucky for the Landés. They are al- ready accustomed to country and language! Other Jews still have to find a position etc.

[page 6b]

I’m now thinking: Why did I not take theoretical physics again with Landé? I had taken it in Hamburg, with Lenz, freshly arrived from Sommerfeld, [interlineated: and with Born] and also with Pauli, the kinetic theory of gases. It could have led to a good contact between Landé and me, and, for sure, inspiration!

Text of the original German manuscript

Transcription by Gernot Münster

Cite this resource

Michel Janssen, “Lucy Mensing,” American Institute of Physics, 2025. http://www.aip.org/history/lucy-mensing.