Emil Kowalski

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Emil Kowalski 2019

Emil Kowalski (born November 23, 1937 in Hradec Králové , Czechoslovakia ) is a Swiss physicist and author .

life and work

Kowalski grew up in Bratislava where he attended elementary school. He graduated from high school in Nitra in 1955 with the Abitur. He began his university studies in physics at the Komenius University in Bratislava and continued it from 1957 at the Faculty of Nuclear Physics at the Technical University of Dresden . He emigrated to Switzerland in 1960. There he initially worked for two years as a development engineer in the nuclear physics department of Landis & Gyr in Zug . From 1962 to 1967 he worked as an assistant at the Institute for Applied Physics at the University of Bern, where he received his doctorate in philosophy (Dr. phil. II) in 1965. He expanded the knowledge he had acquired through lectures on electronics in nuclear physics into the first comprehensive publication Nuclear Electronics , which was recognized as a habilitation thesis by the University of Bern. It is a monograph on electronic circuits and instruments for measuring radioactive radiation.

Kowalski rejoined Landis & Gyr in 1967. As a result, he took over the management of the industrial process control product area , which under his leadership was expanded to include large computer-controlled systems.

From 1977 to 1982 he was director of the control engineering division of CMC Carl Maier & Cie AG, most recently as a member of the management.

His experience in industry led to the publication of critical and sarcastic considerations of current management theories in his book Management durch Fehlentscheidungen , which was identified in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as: What Cyril Northcote Parkinson will be for public administration, Emil Kowalski will be for business in the future .

He describes the problematic relationship between the general public and its technical civilization in the work The Magic of the Push Button , which he introduces with a quote from Karel Čapek : Is civilization something other than the ability to use things that others have thought up? Kowalski notes that the understanding of the outside world often only extends to the push button and the application triggered by it. Forty years later, Kowalski took up this topic again in his work Stupidity, a success story and expanded it to include consequences for western industrial civilization in connection with politics. The title of the book is derived from Kowalski's view that Western states have found a suitable way of dealing with collective ignorance .

Kowalski also dealt with the assessment of new techniques. The publication Possibilities and Limits of the Technology Assessment was carried out within the framework of the Center for Technology Assessment (today TA-Swiss ). Kowalski has been a member of the steering committee of this body since its inception. His revised and expanded book was later published under the title Technology Assessment .

From 1982 onwards he worked for the permanent disposal of low and medium level radioactive waste at the Swiss National Cooperative for the Storage of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA) , initially as a consultant, then after 1984 as a member of the management. In particular, he was head of the Wellenberg repository project in the canton of Nidwalden . However, after extensive investigations and the general agreement of the responsible federal authorities and the canton, this choice of location was rejected in cantonal referendums in 1996 and again in 2002.

In addition to his professional activity, Kowalski dealt with the social problems of the use of modern technologies and the related socio-political issues. In his opinion, our democracy cannot be taken for granted and can easily find itself in a dangerous situation. Kowalski examines the vulnerability of liberal democracy in his work Liberté, Egalité, Fragilité: On the fragility of democracy . There are striking historical examples of voters who used their freedom of choice to abolish a democracy. In a democracy with a functioning rule of law , all citizens are equal before the law. According to Kowalski, however, there are increasing inequalities in terms of the level of knowledge in an increasingly complex world and economic level in a meritocracy . An important advantage of a liberal democracy is that imperfections and undesirable developments can be corrected. In this context, Kowalski speaks of a control loop .

After finishing his professional career in 2002, he worked for the company Bracher und Partner AG to design intergenerational living and retirement homes. He also continued to work on further publications.

more publishments

  • 33x nuclear energy: 33 questions - answers: Swiss experts are available to answer questions = 33x énergie nucléaire; 33 questions - responses; des experts suisses répondent au public . Swiss Association for Atomic Energy, 1978.
  • 1980s: numerous articles for magazines, especially for the supplement Technologie und Gesellschaft of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung
  • The time dimension of the final disposal of radioactive waste . In Roland Posner (ed.): Warnings to the distant future . Raben Verlag, Munich, 1990, p. 17. ISBN 3-922696-65-1
  • From 1991 to 2005 contributions to the weekly reports of Bank Julius Baer on a wide range of topics.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Emil Kowalski: Absolute measurement of the radioactive source strength according to the general coincidence method. Dissertation, University of Bern, Weiss Buchdruckerei, Bern, 1965.
  2. ^ Emil Kowalski: Nuclear Electronics (en). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1970, 400 pages with subsequent editions in Japan, Russia and Poland.
  3. ^ Emil Kowalski: Management through wrong decisions: management by errors. Econ-Verlag, Vienna and Düsseldorf, 1973, ISBN 3-430-15640-8 , 228 pp.
  4. ↑ Emil Kowalski: The magic of the push button. About the uncontrolled influences on our lives . Econ-Verlag, Vienna, 1975, ISBN 3-430-15641-6 , 221 pp.
  5. ^ Emil Kowalski: Stupidity: A Success Story . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, 2017, ISBN 978-3-476-04534-8 .
  6. ^ Emil Kowalski: Unexpected consequences of inventions . In Manfred Rist (ed.): Faces of technical progress . Verlag NZZ, 1988, ISBN 3-85823-242-4
  7. ^ Emil Kowalski: Possibilities and limits of the technology assessment . Swiss Science Council, Bern, TA 3/1994
  8. ^ Emil Kowalski: Technology Assessment. Search for options for action in technical civilization. vdf Hochschulverlag AG at the ETH Zurich, 2002, ISBN 3-7281-2845-7 , 187 pp.
  9. ^ Jörg Hadermann, Hans Issler and Auguste Zurkinden: The nuclear waste disposal of Switzerland 1945 - 2006 . Verlag NZZ, Zurich 2014, pp. 136ff, ISBN 978-3-03823-890-4
  10. ^ Emil Kowalski: Liberté, Egalité, Fragilité: About the fragility of democracy . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, 2019, ISBN 978-3-476-04863-9 , 229 pp.
  11. ^ Emil Kowalski: Integration, Isolation and Identity . In Georg Sellerberg (Ed.): Interim balance. Helvetic insights and prospects . Haumesser Verlag, Zurich, 1995, p. 16. ISBN 3-9520313-2-1
personal data
SURNAME Kowalski, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicist and author
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Hradec Králové