The beginnings of Mössbauer spectroscopy
In 1958 Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer, aged 29, published the results of an experiment which gave rise to the branch of spectroscopy which now bears his name.
The realisation that electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter can be traced back to 1646 when Athanasius Kircher described an 'infusion of the wood lignum nephriticum', which displayed the phenomenon we now call fluorescence. Later in the 19th century chemists discovered other chemicals with this property, including the tricyclic hydrocarbon fluorene (1867), the dye fluorescein (1871), and potassium uranyl sulphate (Henri Becquerel, 1895).
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