jricco

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July 13, 2009
When the controversial and talented physicist Edward Teller was doing a PhD. with the great Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig, the question asked at the end of every group meeting that focused on a complex sequence of problems was "Wo ist der Witz?", supposed to be translated as "What…
July 4, 2009
That was it, we're back. After six inspiring days in Lindau, the Nobel Laureates Meeting 2009 has ended. Eight authors blogged about it on ScienceBlogs Germany, plus we had further blogging guests such as PZ Myers, Bora Zivkovic and Seema Singh. I did not make myself heard in the last two days.…
July 1, 2009
Phew. The fourth day in Lindau is about to end and I think I speak for everybody when I say extreme humidity is not exactly our favourite aggregate state concerning the weather in this town. Nevertheless we've had another great day at the Nobel Laureates Meeting and would like to share thus with…
June 30, 2009
In our timezone we've nearly reached the end of day three of the Nobel Laureates Meeting 2009. As before, the conference has been dominated by two conjuctures: The atmosphere of pure wit that about 600 scientists spread and scorching temperatures. Nevertheless it is time to sum up what has been…
June 29, 2009
The congress center "Inselhalle" at the opening Also a very young person is attending. The harbour after my first interview. The young participants keep discussing outside. A view back on my way to the hotel.  » Paula Schramm is a chemist and doing her PhD at the University of Stuttgart.
June 29, 2009
Ask an informed layman what he or she thinks is the greatest science-based industrial discovery or invention of all time and the person will likely name the computer, the transistor, the telephone, the incandescent light or perhaps even the blast furnace. But key as all these inventions were to…
June 25, 2009
The what??? Well, you see, one of the traditional events at the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting is the annual cockchafer speech. Let me explain that. The first conference in 1951 ended with a gathering of all attending Nobel laureates and their host, Count Lennart Bernadotte, to take a group…
June 23, 2009
When the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald received the Nobel prize for his research on catalysis in 1909 he probably didn't expect that his field of work would still be one of the most important topics in modern chemistry one hundred years later. Nevertheless all three Nobel Prizes in chemistry in the last…
June 19, 2009
Annually focusing on a different discipline, the Nobel Laureates meet in Lindau (Southern Germany). This year's meeting is going to be about chemistry and we, the editors of ScienceBlogs.de will be covering all events along with seven blogging scientists. Although there will of course be lots of…