 The early introduction of topics such as radioactivity, spectroscopy, electrochemistry (galvanic element), electricity in the atmosphere, and color theory in Austria can all be owed to Exner's doing.His most famous pupils included Marian Smoluchowski, a Viennese physicist of Polish descent, who discovered a theory independently of Albert Einstein and Friedrich Hasenöhrl for Brownian motion, and Victor Hess, whose attention for the exciting and extensive topic of atmospheric electricity and associated radioactivity was influenced by Franz Exner, together with , a pioneer in the study of the atmospheric electricity, and with Hess' discovery of "cosmic radiation" receiving the Nobel prize later, and the later Nobel prize winner Erwin Schroedinger, who began in 1911 as Exner's assistant, with "studies on the kinetics of dielectrics, melting point, pyro- and piezoelectricity" and finally Stefan Meyer.In the 1920s and 1930s most physics chairs were occupied by pupils of Exner