Manne Siegbahn

Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn was born on December 3, 1886, in Örebro. Educated at Lund University under Johannes Rydberg, he completed his doctorate in 1911, succeeding Rydberg as professor of physics in 1920 before being appointed to Uppsala University in 1923.

Siegbahn invented precision X-ray vacuum spectrometers and diffraction gratings of unprecedented accuracy, discovering the M-series and N-series X-ray emission lines and proving that X-rays are refracted by prisms like ordinary light. His spectroscopic measurements provided definitive empirical confirmation of Niels Bohr's quantum shell model of the atom. Awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics, he founded the Nobel Institute for Physics in Stockholm (now the Manne Siegbahn Laboratory), mentoring generations of atomic physicists.