Werner Kolhörster

Werner Heinrich Gustav Kolhörster (28 December 1887 – 5 August 1946) was a German physicist and a pioneer of research into cosmic rays.

[2] Repeating the cosmic ray experiments of Victor Hess, in 1913-14 Kolhörster ascended by balloon to an altitude of 9 km, where he confirmed Hess' result that the ionization rate from cosmic rays was greater at that altitude than at sea level.

[3] Kolhörster continued his physics studies at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin, beginning in 1914.

[1] In 1928–29, Walter Bothe and Kolhörster used the Geiger-Muller detector to demonstrate that cosmic rays were actually charged particles.

[4] In 1930, Kolhörster started the first institute for the study of cosmic rays in Potsdam, with financial assistance from the Prussian Academy of Sciences.