Simon francis wiki

German-British chemist

For the footballer, see Frank Simon.

Sir Francis SimonCBE (2 July 1893 – 31 October 1956), was a German and later British physical chemist and physicist who devised the gaseous diffusion method, and confirmed its feasibility, of separating the isotope Uranium-235 and thus made a major contribution to the creation of the atomic bomb.

Early life

Born Franz Eugen Simon to a Jewish family in Berlin, Franz was the son of Ernst Simon and Anna Mendelssohn, daughter of the mathematician Philibert Mendelssohn. Two of his cousins, Kurt Mendelssohn and Heinrich Mendelssohn, were also scientists.

He won the Iron Cross First Class during World War I. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Berlin, working in the research group of Walther Nernst on low-temperature physics related to the Nernst Heat Theorem, which is one statement of the Third law of thermodynamics, and is sometimes referred to as the Nernst-Simon Heat Theorem.^[2