Carl Wagner Scientist
Carl Wilhelm Wagner (born May 25, 1901, in Leipzig, Germany, died December 10, 1977, in Göttingen) was a physical chemist. He stated an important law of oxidation kinetics in 1933.He was awarded the Bunsen-Denkmünze of the Bunsen Society in 1961.Wagner, H. Ulich, and W. Schottky co-authored the famous book Thermodynamik in 1929. Wagner and Schottky proposed the point defect-mediated mechanism of mass transport in solids, Wagner then extended the analysis to electronic defects.For these works and for his subsequent research on local equilibrium, his oxidation rate theory, and the concept of counter diffusion of cations, Wagner is considered by some as the "father of solid state chemistry." In 1933 Wagner spent one year at the University of Hamburg, then moved to the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, where he stayed until 1945. From 1945 to 1949 he was a scientific advisor at Fort Bliss, Texas. From 1949 to 1958 Wagner was a professor of metallurgy at MIT. In 1958 he moved back to Germany and assumed the position of Director of the Max Planck Institute of Physical Chemistry at Göttingen, from which he retired in 1966.