Albert Einstein Science Park

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The Albert Einstein Science Park and other research facilities are located on the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam . It is named after the physicist Albert Einstein . Probably the most famous building in the science park is the Einstein Tower , which was built to experimentally test his theory of relativity .

The science park was laid out on the Telegrafenberg according to plans by the architect Paul Emanuel Spieker as early as the middle of the 19th century . Various astronomical, meteorological and geoscientific observatories were built, integrated into an English landscape garden . The most famous buildings include the Einstein Tower and the Great Refractor , which today belong to the Astrophysical Institute in Potsdam .

history

From 1874 the construction of numerous scientific observatories on the Telegrafenberg began, which were laid out as a science park. According to plans by the architect and senior building director Paul Emanuel Spieker , the clinker brick buildings were integrated into an English landscape garden in a classicist style. The strict structure and the multi-colored facades of the buildings are influenced by the architectural style of Karl Friedrich Schinkel . The brick walls are decorated with two-tone ribbons, star frieze ribbons made from glazed bricks and columns with Corinthian sandstone capitals. The following institutes and observatories were created:

  • 1876 ​​to 1879 construction of the world's first astrophysical observatory (today Michelson House) at the highest point.
  • 1888 to 1889 construction of the small refractor for the creation of a photographic map of the sky
  • 1889 to 1892 the main building of the Geodetic Institute Potsdam (today Helmerthaus)
  • 1892 to 1893 Geodetic-Astronomical Observatory with meridian houses and an observation tower (today the Helmert Tower )
  • 1888 to 1893 Magnetic Observatory and Meteorological Observatory (today Süringhaus)
  • 1896 to 1899 large refractor ; the refractor has been restored since 2003 and re-inaugurated on May 31, 2006.

The well-known astrophysicist Karl Schwarzschild , director of the observatory from 1909, worked in the Michelson House . In 1881 Albert A. Michelson carried out the first version of his famous Michelson-Morley experiment in the basement of the main observatory building . The north wing of the building lies with its longitudinal axis on a meridian plane.

Under the direction of Friedrich Robert Helmert , the Geodetic Institute became the world center of scientific geodesy from 1886. Reinhard Süring , from 1909 head of the meteorological department and 1928–1932 director of the Meteorological-Magnetic Observatory Potsdam, built a uniform meteorological observation network in the Soviet zone of occupation . To this end, 13 years after his retirement from 1945 to 1950 he was once again entrusted with the management of the observatory by the occupying power.

Einstein Tower

The Einstein Tower was built between 1919 and 1924 in collaboration between the physicist Albert Einstein , the astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich and the architect Erich Mendelsohn . Originally, the redshift of spectral lines in the gravitational field of the sun predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity was to be demonstrated with a sunlight spectrometer in this solar observatory . a. proved impractical because of the turbulence on the sun. In the Einstein Tower there is still a spectrometer for observing the sun.

In 1969 the Central Institute for Earth Physics (ZIPE) was founded, which was located here until 1990.

The following newly founded institutes have been located on the site since 1992 and form the Albert Einstein Science Park:

Further facilities were added later:

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam , also founded in 1992, later relocated its headquarters to Babelsberg , but continues to operate the historical telescopes Great Refractor and Einstein Tower and their exhibitions on the Telegrafenberg .

In the 1990s, the historic buildings were extensively renovated, but numerous new buildings were also built.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jana Haase: Interesting ignitions . PNN . October 1, 2011. Accessed March 8, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 49 ″  N , 13 ° 3 ′ 54 ″  E