Education
He studied physics at Justus-Liebig-Universität in Giessen and Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck and completed his studies with a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1971.
physicist university professor
He studied physics at Justus-Liebig-Universität in Giessen and Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck and completed his studies with a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1971.
In 1976 he moved to the department of nuclear chemistry at Graduate Student Instructor in Darmstadt, Germany, which was headed by Peter Armbruster. He played a leading role in the construction of SHIP, the "Separator of Heavy Ion Reaction Products". He was the driving force in the discovery of the cold heavy ion fusion and the discovery of the elements bohrium (Bh Z=107), hassium (Hs Z=108), meitnerium (Mountain Z=109), darmstadtium (Ds Z=110), roentgenium (Rg Z=111) and copernicium (formerly eka-mercury or ununbium) (Uub Z=112).
In 1984 he became head of the new Graduate Student Instructor project, the fragment separator, a project which opened new research topics, such as interactions of relativistic heavy ions with matter, production and separation of exotic nuclear beams and structure of exotic nuclei.
He directed the Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Chemistry department of the Graduate Student Instructor and was professor of physics at the University of Mainz until he retired in March 2005. All his life he is deeply concerned about the philosophical and theological implications of physics.
Among the rewards he received should be mentioned the Röntgen-Prize of the University of Giessen in 1983 and (together with Sigurd Hofmann) the Otto-Hahn-Prize of the city of Frankfurt/Main in 1996.