Wolfgang Kummer (physicist)

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Wolfgang Kummer (born October 15, 1935 in Krems , † July 15, 2007 in Vienna ) was an Austrian physicist .

Life

Kummer studied technical physics at the Technical University of Vienna from 1953 to 1958 ; In 1958 he graduated with a degree in technical physics with honors. In 1960 he received his doctorate with a thesis in theoretical physics under Walter Glaser and Ludwig Flamm (temporarily returned from his retirement due to Glaser's death in January 1960 due to cancer ). Before that, Kummer had already given courses in theoretical physics on behalf of Glaser from 1958 onwards. With the help of Walter Thirring , who made a Ford scholarship possible for him, he was a fellow at the European Nuclear and Particle Research Center CERN in Geneva from 1961 , where he worked as a scientific assistant to the then CERN director Victor Weisskopf .

In 1966 he was appointed director of the Institute for High Energy Physics at the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1968 he was appointed full professor of theoretical physics at the Vienna University of Technology. 1985–1987 Kummer was President of CERN's highest body, the Council of CERN . He was head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Technical University of Vienna from 1995 until his retirement in 2003.

Wolfgang Kummer had been married to Lore Pokorny since 1960 and died at the age of 72. He was buried at Baumgartner Friedhof (group 28, number 115A).

Awards

Act

The main research interests of Kummer were high energy physics , quantum field theory , mathematical physics and quantum gravity as well as the theory of black holes . He has published more than 170 publications. His most famous work from quantum field theory, "Ghost Free Nonabelian Gauge Theory", appeared in 1975 in Acta Physica Austriaca. In it, the axial calibration is investigated, which is free from the unphysical mind degrees of freedom that otherwise occur in calibration field theories. His best known work from quantum gravity, "Dilaton gravity in two-dimensions", appeared in Physics Reports in 2002. The methods he developed in this (and other) work are still used today by many researchers in the field of theoretical physics . He did his doctorate a. a. Manfred Schweda , Anton Rebhan , Maximilian Kreuzer and Daniel Grumiller .

Wolfgang Kummer set up the elementary particle physics department at the Austrian Academy of Sciences . From 1979 to 1991 he was head of the inter-university computer center of the TU, from 1981 to 1987 he was chair of the physics department. He was also involved in numerous national and international institutions. Kummer was the Austrian representative at the CERN Council, its vice-president (1980–83) and its president (1985–87). He was also a member of the FWF Board of Trustees and the ESA . He has held visiting professorships at the University of Pennsylvania , CERN, Princeton University , Brookhaven National Laboratory BNL and Cambridge University .

Others

On December 27, 1985, he experienced the terrorist attack at Vienna International Airport . Wolfgang Kummer, who was just about to go on a short Christmas vacation with his wife. His wife escaped the attack because she went to buy a newspaper, but Sorrow suffered serious internal injuries from hand grenade splinters and shrapnel . Although initially in critical condition, Kummer recovered quickly thanks to his athletic constitution and resumed his work as CERN Council President after just a few weeks.

Wolfgang Kummer was not only considered an excellent skier and pianist; As a trained tenor , he gave singing evenings with his Geneva colleagues Volker Soergel and Jack Steinberger .

literature

  • Stephan Moskaliuk: Wolfgang Kummer , TIMPANI Publishing House, Kiev, 2005, ISBN 3-7001-2971-8
  • Daniel Grumiller, Anton Rebhan, Dimitri Vassilevich (Eds.): Fundamental Interactions - A Memorial Volume for Wolfgang Kummer , World Scientific, 2009, ISBN 978-981-4273-07-7
  • Hansjörg Dirschmid, Wolfgang Kummer, Manfred Schweda: Introduction to the mathematical methods of theoretical physics , Vieweg 1976

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ W. Konetschny, W. Kummer: Ghost-free non-Abelian gauge theory: renormalization and gauge invariance . In: Acta Physica Austriaca . tape 100 , no. 1 , December 8, 1975, p. 106-124 , doi : 10.1016 / 0550-3213 (75) 90228-X .
  2. ↑ These are defined by the fact that the (relativistic) scalar product of space-like unit vectors vanishes with the gauge fields, so the gauge fields are time-like . Because of the more complicated form of the propagators of the calibration fields, this calibration is rarely used in calculations.
  3. ^ D. Grumiller, W. Kummer, DV Vassilevich: Dilaton gravity in two dimensions . In: Physics Reports . tape 369 , no. 4 , October 2002, p. 327-430 , doi : 10.1016 / S0370-1573 (02) 00267-3 .
  4. ↑ a b "Wolfgang Kummer 1935-2007" , Vienna University of Technology , July 26, 2007
  5. ↑ Grumiller et al. a. (Ed.), Fundamental Interactions. A Memorial Volume for Wolfgang Kummer , World Scientific, with memories by Manfred Schweda, Kenneth Lane , Herwig Schopper , Peter van Nieuwenhuizen , web-archive
personal data
SURNAME Sorrow, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Krems
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 2007
Place of death Vienna