Wolfgang Gaede

Wolfgang Max Paul Gaede (25 May 1878 – 24 June 1945) was a German physicist and pioneer of vacuum engineering.

In 1897 he began studying medicine at the University of Freiburg, but he soon switched to the field of physics.

He invented the rotating mercury pump for high vacuum, which he presented to his scientific colleagues in 1905 at a congress in Merano.

Also in Freiburg im Breisgau, Gaede wrote his habilitation thesis on The external friction of gases in 1909.

A lifelong consultancy contract from 1906 with Leybold GmbH of Cologne allowed him to continue his research in his private laboratory in Karlsruhe and later in Munich.