born June 24, 1883, Waldstein, Styria, Austria
died Dec. 17, 1964, Mount Vernon, N.Y., U.S.
Austrian-born U.S. physicist.
He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1906. His research dealt chiefly with radioactivity and atmospheric electricity. His experiments proved what had long been suspected: an extremely penetrating radiation of extraterrestrial origin permeates the atmosphere (see cosmic ray ). Further investigation of this radiation, named cosmic rays in 1925, led Carl D. Anderson (1905–91) to discover the positron and opened up new fields of research in modern physics. For this work, Hess and Anderson shared a Nobel Prize in 1936.