Johann Wilhelm Geiger was a German physicist born on September 30, 1882. It is thought that his father was one of his biggest influences to Geiger going into the scientific field, as he was a professor at the University of Erlangen. He is best known for an invention that he made impeccable contributions to the Geiger counter.

A Geiger Counter is a device that measures the amount of radiation being emitted in an area. It is mainly used when going into territories that may contain radiation in order to ensure the safety of the people entering the area. It does so by detecting alpha radiation particles, and then later when he upgraded it, it could detect beta radiation particles as well as ionizing electromagnetic photons.

Geiger attended the University of Munich in Germany, studying physics, and later was awarded a doctorate from the University of Erlangen for his contributions and study of electrical releases through gases.

Aside from the Geiger Counter, he also made remarkable achievements by working with fellow scientists in the field of chemistry. One of his greatest achievements was that in 1907, he teamed up with famous chemist Ernest Rutherford and performed the distinguished Rutherford “Gold-Foil” experiment. In this experiment, alpha particles were shot at a high speed at a thin sheet of gold foil. It was expected that the particles would simply pass right through. The results of the experiment were that the particles went through, but only sometimes, and that when they did go through, they didn’t go directly through, rather, they went through and came out at a different angle.

An additional accomplishment of Geiger was the discovery of the Geiger-Nuttall law. In discovering this, he teamed up with renowned scientist John Mitchall Nuttall. This was paramount in the discovery of Rutherford’s atomic model.

In 1929, while teaching for a short time as a post at the University of Tübingen, he for the first time made accurate and defined observations of cosmic-ray showers.

During World War I he served as an artillery officer in the German army. Then, during the war, he and a colleague, Walther Bothe, devised a practice known as “coincidence counting” and then used it to explain the information of the Compton Effect.

During World War II, he was an essential character in the “Uranium Club,” a group that was dedicated to creating an atomic weapon for Nazi Germany. Throughout his other biographies, he was been said to have been a “wonderful, loyal, and nationalistic Nazi, who without second thought would betray his closest colleagues on cause that they did not support the Third Reich.”

After World War II had ended, Geiger’s health became a little better, as he had been suffering from rheumatism. Unfortunately, as a cost of the fall of the Third Reich, he was forced out of his house without any possessions. On September 24, 1945, Johann Wilhelm Geiger died due to poor health, lack of food, and terrible living conditions.