Emil Gabriel Warburg (9.03.1846 - 28.07.1931) was a German physicist and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1895). He was born in Altona. In 1867 he received the degree of doctor of philosophy at the University of
Berlin. He was professor at the universities of Strasbourg (from 1872) and Freiburg (from 1876), and was rector of the University of Freiburg. In 1895 —1921 he was professor at the University of Berlin and in 1905 — 22 president of the Physico-Technical Institute in Berlin.
His research was in the fields of acoustics, molecular physics, magnetism, the study of the elastic properties of solids, electricity, photochemistry and quantum theory. Together with A. Kundt he gave experimental confirmation of the kinetic theory of gases. He proved that the cyclic magnetisation of ferromagnets involves a loss of mechanical and correspondingly of electromagnetic energy, which appears as hysteresis heat (1881), and he found the connection between this loss of energy and the area of the hysteresis curve. He studied the electrical conductivity of gases, liquids and solids, the e.m.f. and the chemical reactions accompanying electrical phenomena in gases, and galvanic polarisation. He proved the correctness of Planck's theory of radiation and of Einstein's photochemical equivalence law. He was the author of the well-known “Course of Experimental Physics”, which ran to 24 editions.