Walther Nernst, 1864-1941

The little town of Prenzlau not far from Berlin was for many generations the home of the Nernst family. One of its scions, grandson of the Lutheran pastor there in Napoleonic times, settled on the land and farmed a large estate on the Royal domains. It was here that Gustav Nernst, the father of the great scientist, was born. He joined the Prussian civil service and became a judge. While he was posted at Briesen, in West Prussia, his wife, née Ottilie Nerger, gave birth on 25 June, 1864, to their third child, christened Walther Hermann. Originally Walther Nernst seemed likely to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. He was deeply interested in classics and literature and indeed at one time desired to become a poet. But his chemistry master at Graudenz Gymnasium inspired him with a love of that subject. As boys will, he gradually got together materials for a small laboratory in the cellar of his father’s house and thenceforward to the day of his death his allegiance to science never wavered. Though he passed out of the Gymnasium as head of the school and his Latin composition ranked as one of the best of the year, he devoted his time at the university entirely to natural science. He attended courses at the universities of Zürich, Wuerzburg and Graz where Professor von Ettinghausen especially exercised a great influence upon him. Having taken his degree under Friedrich Kohlrausch at Wuerzburg in 1886 he worked with Ostwald at Leipzig for some years where his interest in the then border-line subject between physics and chemistry, crystallised. In 1891, he became Reader in Physics at Göttingen where a year later he married Emma Lohmeyer, the daughter of a distinguished surgeon. In 1894 he was invited to accept a chair at Munich, but he preferred to remain at Göttingen. Here the university built him a new physico-chemical laboratory and he became the first professor of that subject. He was nominated Geheimrat in 1904 and a year later became Professor of Physical Chemistry in Berlin. He remained in the capital for the rest of his official life. For two years (1922-1924) he was President of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, but the call of the university was too strong and he returned as Professor of Physics and Director of the Physical Laboratory in 1924 until his retirement in 1934.