Paul Alfred Biefeld

Dr. Paul Alfred Biefeld (22 March 1867 – 21 June 1943) was born in Jöhstadt, Saxony, Germany. He was the son of Heinrich and Wilhelmina (Glaeser) Biefeld, he moved to the United States in 1881. Biefeld received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin in 1894. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 1900.

He married Emma Bausch, of Frankfurt am Main, on 11 April 1900. He was the Assistant Principal of Appleton Wisconsin high school 1894-1897. Paul was the lab assistant in Physics and Electrical Engineering at the ETH Zürich, 1899 – 1900, where he met Albert Einstein. Biefeld was the professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Hildburghausen Technikum, Germany 1900 – 1906. He was also the professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Akron, Akron, Ohio in 1906 and continued until 1911. He arrived at Denison University in 1911 where he was the professor and lecturer of Astronomy and the Director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory. He continued to teach at Denison University and lived in Granville, Ohio until his death in June 1943.

Biefeld joined the Yerkes Eclipse Expedition to Denver, Colorado in 1918. He was the research assistant at the Yerkes Observatory for the summer of 1919. Biefeld was part of the Yerkes Eclipse Expedition to Catalina Island in September 1923. He is noted for his study of Electrohydrodynamics with Thomas Townsend Brown; their discovery is known as the Biefeld–Brown effect.

Affiliations:

• Member of the American Astronomical Society
• Member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
• Republican Party
• Baptist

References

• Who's Who in America 1924-1925 Vol. 13 Publisher A. N. Marquis & Company Chicago, 1924.
• Maple Grove Cemetery Record [1]