Paul Scherrer

Paul Scherrer (1890 to 1969) was a Swiss physicist, professor of experimental physics at ETH Zurich from 1920 and head of its Physical Institute from 1927, who steered the institute toward nuclear physics; the first cyclotron at ETH Zurich was built under his direction in 1940. With his tutor Peter Debye he developed in 1916 the Debye-Scherrer powder method, an X-ray procedure for analysing the structure of crystals. Alongside his research he served in bodies concerned with bringing nuclear energy to Switzerland: the Swiss Federal Council appointed him President of the Swiss Study Commission on Atomic Energy in 1946 and President of the Swiss Commission for Atomic Sciences in 1958, and he took part in setting up Reaktor AG at Würenlingen to study the construction and operation of nuclear fission facilities. He also helped establish CERN near Geneva and sat on its Council. The Paul Scherrer Institute, formed in 1988 from the federal reactor research institute and the Swiss institute for nuclear physics, is named after him.