Gustav Kirchhoff

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (12 March 1824 – 17 October 1887) was a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects.

Quotes

  • Look here, I have succeeded at last in fetching some gold from the sun.
    • after his banker questioned the value of investigating gold in the Fraunhofer lines of the sun and Kirchhoff handing him over a medal he was awarded for his investigations.
    • A memoir of Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, by Robert Von Helmholtz, translated by Joseph De Perott, in Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution (1890), p. 537.

Disputed

  • Why do you want to come into physics? All is done and understood.
    • as an advice to Max Planck not to study physics, by Anton Z. Capri, Quips, Quotes and Quanta. World Scientific (2007). p. 1. ISBN 9812709207
    • a similar advice has been given by Philipp von Jolly, as related by Max Planck in his lecture Vom Relativen zum Absoluten (December 1, 1924).
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