Education
University of Vienna.
University of Vienna.
Altar was born in Vienna in 1900. In 1923 he obtained a doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Vienna. Due to the poor job market post World War I, Altar, in 1925, move to his uncle"s home in London.
In London Professor A. O. Ranking at Imperial College introduced him to Edward Appleton in King"s College London.
In the 1930s he moved to the United States where he joined the physics department of Pennsylvania State University. From 1935 to 1937 he served as a researcher at the Frick Chemical Laboratory at Princeton University, working on a study of optical rotatory power in organic molecules.
During his time in King"s College, Altar and Appleton made slow progress every day. The was an exercise in Lorentzian magneto-optics.