Bothe, Walther Wilhelm Georg, 1891–1957, German physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1923. Bothe was a researcher at the Reich Physical and Technical Institute (1913–30) and a professor at Heidelberg (1930–57). He shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Max Born for devising the coincidence method, which he used to study the Compton effect and the wave-particle duality of light. Bothe also applied the method to the study of cosmic rays and was able to show that they consisted of massive particles rather than photons. During World War II he worked on the German nuclear weapons project.
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