Josef Meixner (24 April 1908 – 19 March 1994) was a German theoretical physicist,[1] known for his work on the physics of deformable bodies, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, Meixner polynomials, Meixner–Pollaczek polynomials, and spheroidal wave functions.
[2] Meixner began his studies in theoretical physics with Arnold Sommerfeld at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1926.
He was awarded his doctorate in 1931, with the submission of a thesis on the application of the Green function in quantum mechanics.
[5] Meixner later wrote in his personal memoirs about his close friend, an Austrian Jew who came to Munich in 1929 and left for Princeton in 1933: Bochner foresaw the coming political development very clearly, and I recall when we, surely at the end of 1932, stood before a bulletin board of the Voelkischer Beobachter and he said: ‘Now it is almost time that I must depart’.
[5]Meixner loosened the condition on the generating function and determined that
[6] In 1934, Meixner became an Assistant in theoretical physics to Karl Bechert at the University of Giessen.
[5] In 1942, he was appointed “Extraordinary” Professor of theoretical physics and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Rhine-Westfalian Institute of Technology, Aachen, Germany.
Meixner received a denazification certificate (Persilschein) with the help of his PhD advisor Sommerfeld, one of the few German scientists untainted with Nazi affiliation, who wrote that Meixner had never been a supporter of the Nazi system but in his circumstances it would have been very difficult for him to avoid joining the SA.
[5] After Sommerfeld's death in 1951, Meixner edited a volume and new editions of two other volumes of Sommerfeld's six-volume Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik.
Meixner conducted research and taught graduate courses at the Institut für theoretische Physik of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH Aachen).
He was known for his work on the physics of deformable bodies (rheology), thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, Meixner polynomials, Meixner-Pollaczek polynomials, and spheroidal wave functions.