 This site in german. |
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| I spent my childhood and time of adolescence in my hometown
Gießen in the heart of
Germany. After I finished my studies with a PhD in Physics at the Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen, I spent several years at the foot of the French Alpine range at the multinational research center Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble. A valuable experience was to live together with people from different nations. |
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Now, I enjoy to live in the nice town of Ingelheim situated in the lovely Rhine valley amidst vast vineyards (aerial view) near Mainz. (Click the map at the right side to get an impression of the geographical situation of Ingelheim in Germany.) | 
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Here I can relax from my work at the nearby Johannes Gutenberg- University, where I am engaged in studying the origin of the heavy chemical elements in star explosions billions of years ago. Actually, in combinaton with astronomical observations obtained by american collegues with the Hubble space telescope, we try to derive better eatimations of the age of the Universe (all who are not too frightened, may visit my homepage at the Institute for Nuclear Chemistry).
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In my time of leasure, I still stuck to the past, but shifting from billion years to more human time spans. Stimulated by the historic environment in the Rhine valley (of which the palace of Emperor Charles the Great in Ingelheim is only one example), I like to reading about history and archaeology. | 
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| Surfing the net is a further way to learn alternative ideas and keep informed on actual developments in natural science and public life. |  |
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The observation of a total eclipse of the moon at the astronomical observatory in Mainz in September 1997 incited me to join the local stargazers. So I now can have a look on stars and galaxies, instead only theorizing about them. |  |
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The stargazers intend to participate at the celebration of the 600st birthday
of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of typography with movable
letters. In preparation, we gather as much information as possible on
celestial objects with reference to Gutenberg
and Mainz
as the rimae
Gutenberg and the lunar
crater Gutenberg at the edge of Mare
Fecunditatis, the Minor
Planet (777)Gutemberga or the obsolete
constellation "OFFICINA TYPOGRAPHICA". The widely used expression "Gutenberg Galaxy" is not refering to a distant galaxy but is derived from the book "The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Invention of Typographic Man" (Univ. of Toronto Press, 1962) from the canadian theoretician of mass media Marshall McLuhan (see a Playboy-interview with McLuhan). The "Global Village" is the most famous catchword first used in this book. |
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During the most important astronomical event in Germany, unfortunately, I was standing in the rain, but some lucky ones could even take pictures: images from the solar eclipse of August 11 1999. |  |
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Last updated: April 20, 2008. |  |
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