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Hugo Fricke

danish-American physicist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ21033435
Source-derived summary

Hugo Fricke (August 15, 1892 – April 5, 1972) was a Danish-American physicist who studied the chemical (radiolysis) and biological (radiation biology) effects of X-ray and electron beams and who also invented the Fricke dosimeter named after him. He also made important contributions to the theory of impedance measurements.

Early life, education and career

Hugo Fricke was born on August 15, 1892, in Aarhus, Denmark, to Hedevig (née Kämpfner) and Gunnar Fricke, the oldest of four siblings. Fricke relocated to Copenhagen in 1910, where he studied at the University of Copenhagen from 1910 to 1916, where he also worked as an assistant to Niels Bohr. In 1918, he moved to Lund University where he worked with Manne Siegbahn on X-ray spectroscopy. In 1919 he emigrated to the US, working at Columbia University and at Harvard University with Theodore Lyman until 1921. He moved to Cleveland Clinic by invitation of George Crile to head a biophysics laboratory between 1921 and 1928. Afterwards, Fricke was hired by Charles Davenport to work at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor from 1928 to 1955. He worked at Argonne National Laboratory from 1955 and at the Danish Atomic Energy Laboratory, now Risø DTU, from 1966 onwards. In 1949 he married Dorothy Newman.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hugo Fricke” as danish-American physicist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1892, 1972, 1910, 1916—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1892-08-15. The account is most persuasive where Hugo, Fricke and danish-American can be independently traced.
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Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as danish-American physicist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q21033435. VIAF identifies the subject as 311289370. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1972, 1910 and 1916.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hugo Fricke” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.