by Rudolf P Huebener (Emeritus Professor, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany) & Heinz Lübbig (Retired, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany)

Rudolf Huebener earned his PhD in physics in 1958 from the University of Marburg. After holding research positions in Karlsruhe and New York he worked 12 years at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, USA. In 1974 he accepted a professorship of Experimental Physics at the University of Tübingen, which he kept until his retirement in 1999. For his scientific achievements he was awarded the Max Planck Research Prize in 1992 and the Cryogenics Prize in 2001. Rudolf Huebener published several books, for example “Magnetic Flux Structures in Superconductors”, 2nd edition (2001), “Electrons in Action” (2005), and “Walther Nernst: Pioneer of Physics and of Chemistry” (2007 together with H-G Bartel).
 

Heinz Luebbig earned his PhD in mathematical physics from the Technical University Berlin and spent, after a longer term of teaching theoretical physics, most of his CV at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt; director and professor responsible for theoretical foundation of metrology. Among his main objectives there have been the topology ofmacroscopic quantum interference in superconducting systems, and the inverse problem of pattern recognition due to biomedical potentials. He is co-editor of an international standard series of superconducting interference devices (1976 – 1991), and has edited a book on the inverse problem (1994). His present field of interest is quantum metrology on the basis of fundamental constants.
 

In 1887, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) was originally founded as the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) in Berlin in order to promote basic research in physics. It subsequently developed into the largest research center worldwide as a place where scientists could concentrate exclusively on their research subject, and served as a model for similar institutes established in other countries.

Within a very short time, the PTR produced extremely important scientific results that cemented its international position at the top, such as Max Planck's radiation law and energy quantization theory as well as Walther Meissner's discovery of the Meissner effect which represented a turning point in the field of superconductivity. This book describes the scientific and industrial milieu of the time, and explains in detail the role of the key people, including Albert Einstein's involvement with the PTR. A brief discussion on how the PTR was affected by the Nazi dictatorship in Germany is also given.