Walter Kertz

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Walter Kertz (born February 29, 1924 in Remscheid ; † September 8, 1997 in Braunschweig ) was a German geophysicist .

Life

Kertz was the son of a pastor. He first studied mathematics at the University of Göttingen (with a diploma in mathematics), where he received his doctorate in geophysics under Julius Bartels in 1950 with a dissertation on the influence of the American chain mountains on the tidal oscillations of the atmosphere . He was then a research assistant at Bartels in Göttingen and in 1956 a visiting scholar at New York University . In 1958 he completed his habilitation in Göttingen and from 1960 was full professor for geophysics and meteorology at the TU Braunschweig and founder of the institute for geophysics and extraterrestrial physics there . He turned down an offer to succeed his teacher Bartels in Göttingen in 1964. He retired on September 30, 1991.

Kertz dealt mainly with tides in the atmosphere and geomagnetism, where he developed, among other things, a method to separate internal and external components of the magnetic field on earth (the Kertz operator is named after him). In Braunschweig he founded a group for the construction of magnetometers for space probes (for example for the Helios mission). Other research areas were electromagnetic deep sounding, for example in exploration, geothermal energy (as an energy source) and marine geomagnetism. But he also dealt with the history of geophysics, especially after his retirement. Books about it were published after his death by his wife Ruth Kertz, with whom he had been married since 1950, and by his successor in Braunschweig, Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier . In 1995, Kertz published a history of the Technical University of Braunschweig. Since 1966 he was a member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society . In 1970 he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Prizes and awards

The Walter Kertz Medal of the German Geophysical Society (DGG) is awarded in his honor and the Walter Kertz Study Prize from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Physics at the TU Braunschweig.

In 1987 he received the Hans Stille Medal . Since 1984 he has been an honorary member of the DGG, co-founder of the Research College for Physics of the Earth (FKPE) and the Alfred Wegener Foundation (AWS), whose first president he was in 1980 and whose archive he built up. From 1976 to 1982 he was a member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation and chairman of its committee for joint geoscientific research. In this function he also promoted polar research and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar Research (on whose board of trustees he was a representative of the DFG) in its founding phase. He was also involved in the expansion of the geosciences at the University of Bremen as a consultant, for which he received an honorary doctorate in Bremen in 1991 .

Fonts

  • Introduction to geophysics. 2 volumes, BI university pocket books, 1969, 1971 (Volume 1: Earth , Volume 2: Upper atmosphere and magnetosphere ).
  • Statistics of geophysical observation series. Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, TU Braunschweig, 2nd edition 1978.
  • History of geophysics. Olms Verlag 1999 (edited from the estate of Ruth Kertz, Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier).
  • Editor with H. Birett, K. Helbig, U. Schmucker: On the history of geophysics. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the German Geophysical Society. Springer Verlag, Berlin 1974.
  • Biographical lexicon on the history of geophysics. Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, 2002 (edited from the estate of Ruth Kertz, Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier).
  • Editor: Technical University of Braunschweig. From the Collegium Carolinum to the Technical University (1745–1995). Olms 1995.
  • Kertz was also editor of a volume on the history of geophysics in 1974 for the German Geophysical Society, ( online ).

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Kertz, Manfred Siebert: On the decomposition of a local geomagnetic field into outer and inner parts. News Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Math-Physics. Class. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1957, p. 88.
  2. ↑ For example, in his keynote lecture at the 4th annual meeting of the German Geophysical Society in Berlin 1974 Geoscientific Aspects of Energy Supply.
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 130.
  4. ↑ Walter Kertz Study Prize on tu-braunschweig.de
personal data
SURNAME Kertz, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Remscheid
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1997
Place of death Braunschweig