Gabriele Rabel

Gabriele Rabel
Gabriele Rabel in Cambridge in 1938
Born1880
Vienna, Austria
DiedAugust 1963 (aged 82–83)
Cambridge, England
Alma materUniversity of Vienna
Occupation(s)Physicist, botanist

Gabriele Rabel (1880 – 27 August 1963) was an Austrian physicist and botanist.[1]

Biography

Gabriele Rabel was born the youngest of three to a prosperous Viennese lawyer in 1880.[2]

Rabel studied under Richard Wettstein at the University of Vienna, studying plants.[1] She went on to do experimental work on the color adaptation of certain low plants to their surroundings.[1] Eventually moving on to studying theoretical physics in Leipzig and in Berlin with Albert Einstein and Max Planck,[3] getting her P.hD. in physics for a thesis entitled "The Intensity of Certain Lines of the H-Spectrum as Dependent on Gas Pressure".[4] Rabel's recollections of Planck have provided great insight into him as a lecturer.[4][5]

In 1923, Rabel was diagnosed with manic depression and lived in a sanatorium for two years where she started studying philosophy, working with Hermann Keyserling and Rudolf Steiner.[2]

After becoming intrigued by philology, she conducted research at the Goethe Archives in Weimar. There, in 1927, she published Goethe und Kant [2] and books about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Immanuel Kant.[1] In 1932, she became a regular contributor to Science Service while still working as a scientist in Germany. As a contributor, she wrote summaries of topics ranging from paleontology to syphilis, continental drift to psychotherapy and poetry.[2]

In May 1940, Rabel moved to England to avoid the economic and political situation developing in Germany prior to World War II.[2] She lived in the United States for four years lecturing. During the 1930s and 1940s she wrote about evolution, genetics, and Charles I of Austria, and lived in Cambridge.[1]

She died on 27 August 1963 in Cambridge, England.[2] Her papers are held at the Churchill Archives Centre, found in Churchill College, Cambridge.[1]

Notable works

  • Rabel, Gabriele, Goethe and Kant (1927) Selbstverlag
  • Rabel, Gabriele, translator, Kant: Selections (1963)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "The Papers of Gabriele Rabel". Churchill Archives Centre. Retrieved 9 April 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "A Rabel with a Cause: Gabriele Rabel, biologist, philosopher, author, and contributor to Science Service". Retrieved 2015-05-19.
  3. ^ Heilbron, J. L. (2000). The dilemmas of an upright man : Max Planck and the fortunes of German science. Internet Archive. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-23806-0.
  4. ^ a b Brown, Brandon R. (2015). Planck : driven by vision, broken by war. Internet Archive. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021947-5.
  5. ^ Frisch, Otto Robert (1979). What little I remember. Internet Archive. Cambridge, [Eng.] ; New York : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22297-6.