Karl Lanius

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Karl Lanius (born May 3, 1927 in Berlin ; † July 21, 2010 in Königs Wusterhausen ) was a German physicist . He worked in the field of cosmic rays and high energy physics .

Live and act

During the decades of Karl Lanius' work, high-energy physics was built up in the GDR and integrated into the international research community.

After the early death of his father, he grew up with his mother. She was Jewish and was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944 . Lanius was therefore unable to go to high school and became a toolmaker. As a result of a special examination, he was admitted to study after the war and studied physics from 1946 to 1949 at the Technical University of Berlin and from 1949 to 1952 at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HUB), which he graduated as a physicist .

After completing his studies, he began his scientific work in 1952 at the Miersdorf Institute of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (DAW). It was there that the first work in the field of nuclear physics in the GDR took place. In 1957 he received his doctorate at the HUB, and in 1962 he completed his habilitation there. In the same year he was given a lectureship and in 1964 a professorship for physics at the HUB, he continued to work at the DAW in Zeuthen.

In 1956, the Miersdorf Institute was transformed into the Nuclear Physics Institute of the DAW Zeuthen (head: Gustav Richter ). In this institute the department “Cosmic Radiation” continued to exist under the direction of Karl Lanius. This nuclear physics institute was divided into two independent research centers in 1962: “Physics of high energies” (lead: Lanius) and “Special problems in theoretical physics” (lead: Richter). In 1968 the previous “Research Center for High Energy Physics” was converted into the “Institute for High Energy Physics (IfH)” of the DAW (Director: Karl Lanius).

Lanius headed the field of high energy physics from 1962 to 1973 and from 1976 to 1988. In the intervening years from 1973 to 1976 he worked as vice director of the United Institute for Nuclear Research (VIK) in Dubna near Moscow. From 1988 to 1990 he was a visiting scientist at the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute , with longer research stays at CERN in Geneva .

Together with his department head Claus Grote , who was responsible for the bubble chamber , he established contacts with specialist physicists at CERN in Geneva and at DESY in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld at an early stage , and he also organized a lively exchange of scientists during the Cold War . Lanius thus laid the foundation stone for the successful merger of the Institute for High Energy Physics with DESY in 1992, so that DESY Zeuthen was established here as the second location after German reunification .

Memberships and awards (selection)

In 1969 he was elected a member of the learned society of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin . From 1988 to 1992 he headed the physics class of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW) as secretary . In 1993 he was a founding member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin , and was its secretary for the natural sciences class until 1996. From 1987 to 1990 he was Vice President of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). From 1969 to 1990 Lanius was a member of the Research Council of the GDR .

Publications (selection)

  • Elementary Particles 1977 - Lecture in front of the physics class of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978.
  • Elementary Particle Physics. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin; Vieweg Verlag, Braunschweig; Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 978-3-528-06866-0 .
  • Physics and its tendencies - presented using the example of elementary particle physics. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1981.
  • with Manfred Uschner : Away with the devil's stuff! For a Europe free of nuclear weapons. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 978-3-320-01155-0 .
  • Microcosm - macrocosm. The world view of physics. Urania-Verlag, Leipzig; Jena; Berlin 1988, 2nd edition 1989, ISBN 978-3-332-00206-5 ; Beck Verlag, Munich 1988, 2nd edition 1989, ISBN 978-3-406-33210-4 ; Gutenberg Book Guild, Frankfurt am Main; Vienna 1990, ISBN 978-3-7632-3629-9 .
  • Basic research and key technologies. Lecture on the occasion of the Leibniz Day of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR on July 3, 1987. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 978-3-05-500516-9 .
  • as co-author: Global Change. Part 1: Risks, Resources, Opportunities. Becker-Verlag, Velten 1994, ISBN 978-3-930640-39-3 .
  • The earth in transition. Limits of the Predictable. Spectrum; Akademie-Verlag, Heidelberg; Berlin; Oxford 1995, ISBN 978-3-86025-325-0 .
  • with Friedhart Klix : Paths and wrong ways of the people-like. How we became who we are. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart; Berlin; Cologne 1999, ISBN 978-3-17-016035-4 .
  • with Friedhart Klix : Paths and aberrations of the people-like. Cosmology today - a contribution to the worldview. trafo Wissenschaftsverlag Dr. Wolfgang Weist, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-89626-213-4 .
  • Worldviews. A human story. Faber and Faber, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 978-3-936618-66-2 .
  • Climate - environment - people. Social-economic systems and their (in) survival ability. Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-89144-420-7 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ T. Naumann: Particles without limits . Meeting reports of the Leibnitz Society of Sciences in Berlin, Volume 114, year 2012, pp. 161–173. trafo Wissenschaftsverlag Dr. Wolfgang Weist, Berlin 2012.
  2. ↑ Karl Lanius: About the shattering of heavy nuclei of the core emulsion by particles of cosmic rays. Dissertation, Humboldt University Berlin, Math.-Naturwiss. Faculty, Berlin 1957
  3. ↑ Karl Lanius: The inelastic pion-nucleon interaction at 7 GeV. Habilitation thesis, Humboldt University Berlin, Math.-Naturwiss. Faculty, Berlin 1962.
personal data
SURNAME Lanius, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 2010
Place of death King Wusterhausen