Stern, Otto (1888-1969), an American physicist, received the 1943 Nobel Prize in physics. He showed that Louis Victor de Broglie’s theory (that moving particles behave like waves) is also true of molecules. Stern observed the diffraction of molecules when a beam of hydrogen or helium struck a crystal. With Walther Gerlach, he developed a method of measuring the magnetic moments of atoms and then refined it to measure those of atomic nuclei. He was born in Sorau, Germany (now Zary, Poland), on Feb. 17, 1888, and came to the United States in 1933. Stern died on Aug. 17, 1969.
