Walther Gerlach

Walther Gerlach (1 August 1889 – 10 August 1979) was a German physicist who co-discovered, through laboratory experiment, spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern–Gerlach effect. The experiment was conceived by Otto Stern in 1921 and successfully conducted first by Gerlach in early 1922. He was Nazi Germany's plenipotentiary of nuclear physics from December 1943 until his capture by US Army in May 1945.