chambers_search-1

Search Chambers

Consult Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, The Chambers Thesaurus (1996) or Chambers Biographical Dictionary (1997 edition with amendments). Enter your search and choose your title from the drop-down menu.

Eötvös, Roland von, Baron 1848-1919
Hungarian physicist

Born in Pest (Budapest), the son of the writer and statesman Josef von Eötvös (1813-71), he studied at the universities of Königsberg and Heidelberg, and was appointed to a professorship at Budapest University in 1872. His early research on liquids produced the 'Eötvös law', which described the relationship between surface tension, molar volume and temperature for liquids. His subsequent research into gravitation led him to devise the sensitive Eötvös torsion balance in 1888, to conclusively demonstrate Galileo's assertion that all bodies have the same acceleration in a gravitational field, and to provide a vital stepping-stone in Albert Einstein's later development of the general theory of relativity.