Background
Eugen Goldstein was born on September 5, 1850, in Gleiwitz Upper Silesia (now Gliwice, Poland) to a Jewish family.
plac Uniwersytecki 1, 50-137 Wrocław, Poland
Goldstein spent a year at the University of Breslau (now University of Wrocław).
Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Goldstein studied at the University of Berlin (now Humboldt University of Berlin), taking his doctorate in 1881.
Eugen Goldstein was born on September 5, 1850, in Gleiwitz Upper Silesia (now Gliwice, Poland) to a Jewish family.
After attending Ratibor Gymnasium, Goldstein spent a year at the University of Breslau (now University of Wrocław). He then went on to the University of Berlin (now Humboldt University of Berlin), taking his doctorate in 1881.
Goldstein worked at the Berlin Observatory from 1878 to 1890 but spent most of his career at the Potsdam, where he became head of the astrophysical section in 1927. His first scientific paper was published in 1876, his last over fifty years later. Almost all of Goldstein’s published work was on topics which sprang naturally from his lifelong interest in electrical discharges in moderate to high vacuums.
In 1876 Goldstein showed that cathode rays could cast sharp shadows. He was able to demonstrate that they were emitted perpendicularly to the cathode surface, a discovery that made it possible to design concave cathodes to produce concentrated or focused rays, which were useful in a wide range of experiments. But this same discovery cast some doubt on the idea then prevailing among German physicists that the rays consisted of some form of electromagnetic radiation. Further, Goldstein and others showed in 1880 that the rays could be bent by magnetic fields. This discovery also gave aid and comfort to those physicists, predominantly British, who believed that the rays were streams of negative particles.
Over a span of many years, Goldstein published several papers on other aspects of cathode rays. He showed that they could make certain salts change color, that they could be “reflected” diffusely from anodes, and that there was some evidence for electrostatic deflection of parallel beams.
In 1886 Goldstein published his discovery of “Kanalstrahlen,” rays which emerged from channels or holes in anodes in low-pressure discharge tubes. He continued to publish papers on various canal-ray topics, notably studies of the wavelengths of light emitted by various metals and oxides when they were struck by the rays. He found, for example, that the alkali metals, when hit by the rays, emitted their characteristic bright spectral lines, while they did not do so when hit by cathode rays. He also found that constriction in a discharge tube could function as a source of positive rays.
In the last two decades of his life, Goldstein devoted much attention to anode discharges and to the striations of the positive column in low-pressure discharge tubes. Such tubes present a wealth of beautiful and fascinating phenomena, and Goldstein’s experimental virtuosity made it natural for him to pursue such topics. It is ironic that his work in these areas was of secondary importance and now is seldom mentioned in writings in the field, while his early work, and that of his students, was much more fundamental and lasting. But it is perhaps even more ironic that his last paper, published in 1928, reported the detection of the synthesis of ammonia in discharge tubes containing various gases. This virtually forgotten work foreshadowed an intriguing and interesting field of research that came to life over thirty years after Goldstein’s death.