Weißenau branch of the University of Tübingen

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The Weißenau branch of the University of Tübingen dealt with astronomy in Ravensburg - Weißenau from 1959 to 1992 and neuropsychology from 1983 to 2001 . It was dissolved in April 2001. It goes back to the former Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy , which was relocated from Friedrichshafen , which was threatened by bombs, to a remote forest meadow in the Rasthalde near Weißenau during the Second World War .

Forerunner institute: Meteorological height measurement technology

In Weißenau, Erich Regener worked on the development of altitude measurement techniques until his death in February 1955. B. worked with the help of balloons and V2 rockets. In 1949 the Max Planck Society took over the research center, which in 1952 became the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of the Stratosphere. With Julius Bartels' appointment as the new director in 1955, the institute was relocated to Lindau am Harz, but some departments remained in Weißenau. These were assigned to the Astronomical Institute of the University of Tübingen.

Atmospheric physics, hail research and radio astronomy

In 1959 the site was taken over by the Astronomical Institute of the University of Tübingen with the name "Weissenau Branch". There was a department for atmospheric physics and one for radio astronomy. The separation of the tasks of these departments, each with 5–6 permanent employees, was handled quite strictly. Therefore there were also two mechanical workshops.

Atmospheric physics and hail research

Richard Mühleisen's working group for atmospheric physics was moved from Tübingen to Weißenau in 1959. Mühleisen was also known as a hail hunter, because he inoculated thunderclouds with silver iodide. Silver iodide was brought into or under the thundercloud by two former military training aircraft and finely atomized there in order to lead to an explosion-like increase in the "hail embryos" and to achieve a wet and harmless rain down. This research department remained in Weißenau until the death of Prof. Mühleisen († 1988).

Radio astronomy

Heinrich Siedentopf was professor of astronomy at the University of Tübingen and was very interested in radio astronomy. In 1960-61 he set up a fixed 26 m parabolic mirror in Weißenau, the associated measuring arrangement for 610 MHz with a parametric amplifier. Hans Urbarz took over the further expansion of radio astronomy in Weißenau . Under him, the radio spectrograph for solar research was set up in order to register the spontaneous burst radiation caused by outbreaks of the sun. The radio spectrograph had a gimbal mounted antenna system and a measurement range of 56 cm to 6.5 m wavelength. The image of an oscilloscope was recorded with a 35 mm cinema film camera, with which Weißenau occupied a leading position in solar radio astronomy in Europe for several years. After the death of Hans Urbarz, radio astronomy in Weißenau was discontinued in 1992.

Experimental and Clinical Neuropsychology

Frontal section through a human brain. No. 19 is the corpus callosum

In 1983, the psychologist Bruno Preilowski and his colleagues moved to the Weißenau branch. He came from the laboratory of the neurobiologist and Nobel laureate Roger Sperry in 1972 , in which he described previously unknown functions of the anterior parts of the corpus callosum , a thick bundle of nerve fibers that directly connect the two halves of the cerebrum, in split-brain patients and rhesus monkeys .

Split-brain examinations

He was the first to prove to Preilowski that the right hemisphere of split-brain patients also has non-linguistic, emotional functions that suggest typical human consciousness. At the University of Konstanz he had set up a laboratory in which, as in Sperry's group, there was the possibility to switch back and forth between the laboratory and the clinic and to carry out examinations with animals as well as humans. This procedure should also be practiced after his appointment to the University of Tübingen. But difficulties arose in Tübingen in getting adequate scientifically usable space for him as a psychologist in a faculty for social and behavioral sciences.

livestock farming

A rhesus monkey behind bars

In Weißenau it was possible to build comparatively generous outdoor enclosures for experiments with primates such as rhesus monkeys. In the Weißenau animal husbandry, attempts were made to make the breeding conditions as good as possible and to create a connection between experiment and animal husbandry, which, for example, allowed the animals to start and carry out the test tasks independently during the day. The branch office ultimately failed due to the inability to secure the funds for basic personnel. The move back to Tübingen therefore took place in 2001.

Todays use

Today nothing can be seen of radio astronomy. Today the area is used by a forest machine company of the Tübingen regional council.

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  1. ↑ Weißenau branch of the University of Tübingen on TÜpedia.
  2. ^ The Weißenau branch of the University of Tübingen. ( Memento from July 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ A b c d e Günther Müller: Solar radio astronomy in Weissenau.
  4. ↑ Ice from the elevator: The heaviest storm of the year hit the Munich region. Could the devastating hailstorm have been averted?
  5. ↑ a b c An almost successful experiment - after an interview on the closure of the Weißenau branch in Ravensburg for the local press, which was only published in excerpts - March 19, 2001. ( Memento from January 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 47 ° 46 ′ 2.3 ″  N , 9 ° 35 ′ 2 ″  E