Walther Bothe

Walther Bothe developed the coincidence counting for connecting signals from separate particle detectors. Requiring pulses within a short time window helps distinguish a common physical event from unrelated counts. For independent rates $r_1$ and $r_2$, accidental coincidences scale with $r_1{r}_2$ and the window duration; narrowing that duration therefore reduces a calculable background. The method turns timing information into evidence about particle paths and correlated processes, rather than relying on the count in one detector alone.^[ref]

A physicist.^[ref]