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Johann Jakob Balmer
Johann Jakob Balmer (May 1 1825 – March 12 1898) was a Swiss mathematician
and an honorary physicist.
Life and work
He was born in Lausen, Switzerland, the son of a Chief
Justice also named Johann Jakob Balmer. His mother was Elizabeth Rolle Balmer, and he was the oldest son. During his schooling he
excelled in mathematics, and so decided to focus on that field when he attended university.
He studied at the University of Karlsruhe and the University of Berlin, then completed his Ph.D. from the University of Basel in 1849 with a
dissertation on the cycloid. Johann then spent his entire life
in Basel, where he taught at a school for girls. He also lectured at the University of Basel. In 1868 he married Christine
Pauline Rinck at the age of 43. The couple had a total of six children.
Despite being a mathematician, he is not remembered for any work in that field; rather, his major contribution (made at the
age of sixty, in 1885) was an empirical formula for the visible
spectral lines of the hydrogen atom. Balmer's formula computed the wavelength as follows:
for n = 2, h = 3.6456×10−7 m, and m = 3, 4, 5, 6, and so forth. Balmer then used this formula
to predict the wavelength for m = 7, and a colleague at the university was able to confirm a match to a high degree of
accuracy. See Balmer series for further explanation of this relationship.
Balmer's formula was later found to be a special case of the Rydberg formula, devised
by Johannes Rydberg.
with RH being the Rydberg constant
for hydrogen, n1 = 2 for Balmer's formula, and n2 > n1.
A full explanation of why these formulas worked, however, had to wait until the presentation of the Bohr model of the atom by Niels Bohr in 1913.
Johann Balmer died in Basel.
Honors
External links
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