Seite 1 von 10 Fre ie u nd Hansestadt Hamburg B e h ö r d e f ü r W i s s e n s c h a f t u n d F o r s c h u n g DIE SENATORIN Hamburger Preis für Theoretische Physik 2014 13.11.2014, 15.30 Uhr, CFEL, Campus Bahrenfeld Es gilt das gesprochene Wort. Ms Herz, Prof Sengstock, Prof Graener, And especially: Prof Georges, Bonjour et bienvenue à Hambourg! I am very happy to welcome you to our city. The Senate sends very best greetings and the warmest congratulations.
Seite 2 von 10 Here in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, we are actually accustomed to the presence of distinguished physicists. But having so many renowned physicists from all over the world assembled at a symposium is a special honour for us and also makes us especially proud. So I would like to extend my warmest of welcomes to you! I hope that your international Symposium at the Center for Ultrafast Imaging will be a successful one and that you will enjoy your stay in our city! Hamburg and physics have enjoyed a very historic relationship, one that began at the latest with the founding of the University in the year 1919. In the course of only a few years, physicist Otto Stern as the Director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry and later as the Dean created what we would call a scientific cluster today and attracted researchers from all over the world.
Seite 3 von 10 In addition to Otto Stern, three other winners of the Nobel Prize in physics came from Hamburg: Wolfgang Pauli, Johannes D. Jensen and Wolfgang Paul. Legend has it that there could have been a fifth one, for the discovery of the gluon. But for this to happen, the nomination of entire institutions such as the Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron DESY would have to have been permitted. Today, too, it would be difficult to pick out specific outstanding individual researchers: A great number of excellent physicists live and work in Hamburg. Through their research in a great variety of teams, they add to Hamburg s international reputation as a science centre and attract researchers to the Elbe as in the past from many different countries. Also Prof Georges, who is being honoured today with the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics, is certainly not a stranger to the Hamburg physics scene. His
Seite 4 von 10 work with the Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamic group of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter has already brought him to Hamburg a number of times. Together with Prof Cavalleri of the Max Planck Institute and three other European physicists, he also received the first synergy grant from the European Research Council. In addition, he collaborated for a long time with Prof Lichtenstein of the University of Hamburg. With the planned research and teaching stays that are connected with the prize, Prof Georges will be continuing this successful cooperation. Colleagues here have long since become friends, and scientific relationships have turned into personal friendships. This is exactly the kind of research the Hamburg Senate wants to support with its substantial investments in the research infrastructure of Campus Bahrenfeld. Otto Stern already understood how to
Seite 5 von 10 make Hamburg into a true mecca of the sciences in the nineteen twenties and early thirties. The National Socialists obviously did not understand this. They ended this brief heyday with their terror regime, which was both inhuman and hostile to science. But later University administrations and the Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron DESY, which was founded in 1959, picked up where this positive era had left off, with the support of federal and regional political programmes. The free, inquisitive, international spirit of that era can still be felt here in Bahrenfeld today. I am certain that Otto Stern would have been pleased with Campus Bahrenfeld and with a symposium just like yours. Unique research conditions must be present if researchers from all over the world are to feel attracted by this spirit. We make sure that they are present here, and we continue to develop them.
Seite 6 von 10 The most important project at present is the construction of the European x-ray free electron laser XFEL. This unit will generate high-intensive, extra short x-ray pulses with the characteristics of laser light. In addition to the Federal Republic of Germany, 11 countries are contributing to the construction costs of over a billion euros. Hamburg alone is investing 65 million euros. User operation of the European XFEL is to start at the beginning of 2017. Many of the world s researchers can hardly wait for the XFEL to be finished, including those at the Center for Ultrafast Imaging and at the Center for Structural Systems Biology, CSSB. Up to now, several research groups of the CSSB have been using the world s most brilliant synchrotron radiation source, PETRAIII. All the CSSB-researchgroups are interested in the radiation sources of
Seite 7 von 10 DESY. With their help, the researchers attempt to observe dynamic biological processes in great detail as they occur including infection processes and interactions between pathogens and their hosts. The goal is to find starting points for new diagnoses, active substances and vaccines. We recently celebrated the laying of the foundation stone for the future CSSB building. This construction project, including the equipment that is needed, will also be financed by the federal government and several states. The City of Hamburg is contributing 8.5 million euros of the 50 million euros total costs. The Senate has gotten still another building on Campus Bahrenfeld off the ground: the one intended for the Center for Hybrid Nanostructures CHYN. In this case, the construction costs of 61 million euros are for the most part being paid by the City.
Seite 8 von 10 The Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter is also to be given a building of its own. Plans are being made at the moment. And we estimate the construction costs at 37 million euros. I believe that these figures demonstrate the City s support of Campus Bahrenfeld of the University and the German Electron Synchrotron and thus of the institutions of all of the scientific organisations that are represented there, such as the Max Planck Society and the Helmholtz Association, as well as the international cooperation projects established there, like the EMBL which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and the CSSB. As you see, we are very conscious of our historical and scientific responsibility for this campus. Even for a well-to-do city like Hamburg, this means an enormous financial strain. We are therefore very
Seite 9 von 10 grateful that so many non-profit foundations here are committed to scientific, cultural and social issues. The support provided to the Center for Ultrafast Imaging by the Joachim Herz Stiftung is particularly invaluable. It has been highly instrumental in enabling the former regional excellence cluster to develop so well within only a few years. So well that, among other things, a joint project has been developed that will be able to profit from support from the federal and state excellence initiative. The Joachim Herz Stiftung had done a great deal to enable the Center for Ultrafast Imaging to attract excellent researchers from all over the world, and it continues to do so. Therefore, it is also thanks to you, dear Ms Herz, that the open, inquisitive and international spirit prevails here of which I spoke initially. This is the spirit that makes it possible for warm friendships to grow out of scientific collegiality. This also holds true for today s prize winner, Prof Georges,
Seite 10 von 10 and for his colleagues in the excellence cluster Center for Ultrafast Imaging. When he was asked what he would like to do with his prize money, he answered spontaneously: first of all, he would like to invite his Hamburg colleagues to a meal in a real fine restaurant! This wouldn t be the first time that groundbreaking scientific ideas came out of this. Of course, one should bear in mind that the Swedish Academy still doesn t permit institutions to be suggested. Dear Prof Georges, First of all, let me repeat my congratulations to the winner of this year's Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics! I wish you and your colleagues on Campus Bahrenfeld an exciting and productive research stay in Hamburg. And I thank the Joachim Herz Stiftung, dear Ms Herz, most sincerely for its support and for the generous prize money. And let us all enjoy a wonderful prize presentation!