The Nobel Prize in Physics 1925

James Franck

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Prize share: 1/2

Gustav Ludwig Hertz

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Prize share: 1/2

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1925 was awarded jointly to James Franck and Gustav Ludwig Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom"
James Franck and Gustav Hertz received their Nobel Prize one year later, in 1926. During the selection process in 1925, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. James Franck and Gustav Hertz therefore received their Nobel Prize for 1925 one year later, in 1926.

To cite this section
MLA style: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1925. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Thu. 28 Sep 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1925/summary/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Coming up

This year’s Nobel Prize announcements will take place 2–9 October. All announcements will be streamed live here on nobelprize.org.

See the full schedule
Announcement dates

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.