Johannes Stark

Stark, Johannes (1874–1957), German physicist who received the Nobel Prize (1919) for his discovery that light was uniquely affected by an electrical field, in that the field would cause spectral lines to split. Stark also discovered the laboratory basis (as opposed to celestial observation) of the Doppler effect in optics, in which the light frequencies of moving atoms dispensed in a gas-charged tube changed. Stark was a professor of physics at the Universities of Greifswald (1917–20) and Wurzburg (1920–22). He served as president of Reich Physical-Technical Institute (1933–39). He served 4 years in a labor camp, beginning in 1947, for his Nazi participation.

See also: Relativity.