science · 14 October 1991 · 33 years ago
death
Died 14 Oct 1991 at age 87 (born 20 Mar 1904).
Walter Maurice Elsasser was a German-American physicist who contributed to science in several disciplines. In atomic physics, he interpreted electron scattering. In geophysics, during the 1940's, he provided insight into radiative heat transfer in the Earth's atmosphere, and presented the currently accepted dynamo theory to explanation the origin and properties of the Earth's magnetic field. He proposed that this magnetic field resulted from electric currents induced in the fluid outer core of the Earth. He pioneered study of the magnetic orientation of minerals in rocks to reveal the Earth's history of its magnetic field. The last fifty years of his life were to a large part given to studies relevant to biology: a theory of organisms. He wished to establish the distinction between living and inanimate matter.
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