Blas Cabrera Felipe

Background

Cabrera was born on May 20, 1878, in Arrecife, Spain.

Education

Cabrera obtained his licenciatura in sciences in 1898 and his Ph.D. with honors in 1901 at the University of Madrid.

Career

Cabrera became an assistant professor in Complutense University of Madrid and in 1905 was appointed a professor of electricity and magnetism. Early in his career he published several papers on the properties of electrolytes. He also began working on the magnetic properties of matter, which later became his major interest. As a result of his papers, in 1910 Cabrera was appointed director of the newly established Spanish Physical Research Institute.

From 1910 to 1912 he worked with Pierre Weiss, then at the Polytechnical School of Zurich. This period was crucial in Cabrera’s scientific career; most of his research thereafter dealt with the study of weakly magnetic substances. From 1912 on, he carried out intensive research in magnetochemistry. He tried to provide an experimental check on Weiss’s magneton theory, which he mentions in almost every paper. A result of this work was a Rockefeller Foundation grant to build a new National Institute of Physics and Chemistry. Appointed its director in 1932, Cabrera encouraged teamwork between physicists and chemists, and work in magnetochemistry proceeded vigorously.

Cabrera published over 110 papers between 1912 and 1934. He contributed to establishment of Hund and Van Vleck’s molecular field, established the variation of the atomic magnetic moment versus atomic number, modified the Curie-Weiss law for the rare earths, derived an equation for the atomic magnetic moment including the temperature effect and improved many experimental devices he worked with. Some of his magnetic susceptibility measurements have not been improved upon. At the request of Einstein and Marie Curie, Cabrera was named a member of the 6th Scientific Committee of the Solvay Conference. These conferences, held triannually, brought together the world's finest physicists. In the Solvay Conference of 1930, Cabrera participated with a paper titled "The magnetic properties of matter." In 1936 Cabrera, with Cotton, started a laboratory for magnetic research in Paris. From 1941 to 1945 he was a professor at the University of Mexico.

At his death, which occurred on August 1, 1945, he had published over 150 papers.

Achievements

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  Cabrera is considered one of the greatest scientist of Spain and as one of the founders of the study of physical sciences of his country. His work was also recognized on an international level.

Connections

Cabrera married María Sánchez Real in 1909.

Spouse:

María Sánchez Real

colleague:

Pierre-Ernest Weiss

He was a French physicist specialized in magnetism. He developed the domain theory of ferromagnetism in 1907.

He worked with Cabrera from 1910 to 1912.

References

• Blas Cabrera Felipe. Biografías de Científicos Canarios
• Blas Cabrera: Vida y obra de un científico: libro-catálogo de la exposición