Henri Daniel Rathgeber (11 June 1908 – 20 July 1995) was an Australian physicist who studied cosmic rays but considered his most important contribution to be an economic theory that explain how entropy causes unemployment.
His father, Daniel Rathgeber was German, working for Robert Bosch GmbH, and his mother Hortense Desmousseaux was French.
Just before the outbreak of first world war, he moved to Bad Dürkheim with his French mother, while his father served in the German army.
During this period the physics department was very active at the Technische Hochschule, with teachers such as Erwin Schrödinger, Erich Regener and Paul Peter Ewald.
During the inter-war period, Rathgeber was heavily influenced by the economic ideas of Silvio Gesell which were popular in Germany at the time.