born May 27, 1887, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland] died May 18, 1975, Ann Arbor, Mich., U.S.
![Fajans, 1966[Credits : Sam Sturgis, Ann Arbor, Mich.]](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/67/11967-003-08565DF9.gif)
Polish-American physical chemist who discovered the radioactive displacement law simultaneously with Frederick Soddy of Great Britain. According to this law, when a radioactive atom decays by emitting an alpha particle, the atomic number of the resulting atom is two fewer than that of the parent atom. When a beta particle is emitted, the atomic number is one greater.
After study at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg, Zürich, and Manchester, Fajans served on the faculty of the Technical Academy at Karlsruhe in Germany from 1911 to 1917. In 1913, in collaboration with Otto Gohring, he discovered uranium X2, which is now called protactinium-234m. In 1917 he joined the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Munich, where he rose from associate professor to director. From 1936 to 1957, when he retired, Fajans was a professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1942.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "Kasimir Fajans" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.