Christian Holzapfel

Christian Holzapfel (born February 9, 1937 in Haderslev , Denmark ) is a German physicist . He worked for almost 40 years at the Jülich Nuclear Research Center in various institutes; he has been retired since March 2002.

Life and family

Christian Holzapfel grew up in Copenhagen; Visits to school there and in Austria with the Matura in Linz on the Danube. The mother was Else Holzapfel, b. Lundbye (* 2009; † 2006), the father was the meteorologist Rupert Holzapfel (* 1905; † 1960). He studied physics in Frankfurt am Main from 1957 to 1963 (diploma thesis at the Institute for Nuclear Physics 1961; Dipl. Phys. 1963), came to Jülich in 1962 and researched biophysics at Michigan State University in East Lansing in 1972/1973 . His dissertation at the Technical University in Vienna (Dr. techn.) Was in the field of plasma physics and photosynthesis.

In Jülich he worked in a wide variety of areas (plasma physics, membrane physics, biophysics, meteorology and climate research, energy research, tropospheric chemistry, computer simulation, etc.), his main interest is the fundamentals of physics.

Christian Holzapfel was married to Ingeborg, b. Eckenhoff (* 1935; † 2016), and has three sons: Dr. Rupert Holzapfel (* 1960), professor for the field of "International Tourism Management / International Tourism Management" at the University of Bremen; Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Holzapfel (* 1960), specialist in information technology in Hennef; Thomas Holzapfel (* 1968), inter alia “freelance action artist” in Düsseldorf. His brother is the folklorist Otto Holzapfel (* 1941).

Publications (selection)

• The calculation of the electrical conductivity of a plasma with special consideration of the loss of excitation and the diffusion of the charge carriers . Jülich 1969 (dissertation).
• About electrical losses in the MHD generator . Jülich 1971.
• For computer simulation of tropospheric chemistry . Jülich 1987.
• The climate system of our earth . Jülich 1994.
• The metamorphosis of the electron . Books on Demand 2020.