After his studies of mathematics, physics, and geography in Marburg and Göttingen, he worked as a private lecturer in theoretical physics at Göttingen in 1925, professor at Rostock in 1927, Leipzig in 1929, Jena in 1946, Frankfurt/Main in 1951 and from 1957 again in Göttingen. Additionally he stayed in Copenhagen (1926) with Niels Bohr and lectured on the atom at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1928.