Colloquium in Honour of Heiner Müller-Krumbhaar
IFF-News May 6, 2010
A colloquium was held on 29 April by the Institute of Solid State Research in honour of Professor Heiner Müller-Krumbhaar, Director of IFF-3 "Theory of Structure Formation". The Institute paid tribute to the 66-year-old physicist for his scientific achievements in the field of theoretical solid state physics and for his many years of work at IFF. A large number of colleagues from Germany and abroad travelled to the event to wish Müller-Krumbhaar well for his coming retirement.
Müller-Krumbhaar came to IFF as a scientist in 1974, and after stints in Pittsburgh and Hanover, he took over as head of IFF-3 in 1981. In 2006, he was also appointed Research Director for Physics at Forschungszentrum Jülich - a position he held until 2008, when he became President of the German Research School for Simulation Sciences. He has held a chair for theoretical physics at RWTH Aachen University since 1981. His main research interests are the theory of nucleation and pattern formation during dendritic growth, as well as the computer simulation of statistical mechanics models. Amongst the numerous honours Müller-Krumhaar has received in recognition of his outstanding scientific work was the Walter Schottky Prize awarded by the German Physics Society (DPG) in 1979 and his election as a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2002. He recognized the importance of supercomputing for science early on and helped to lay the groundwork in the 1980s for the creation of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, which is amongst the best in the world today.
In addition to his scientific work, Müller-Krumhaar has been involved in increasing the perception of physics amongst the general public for a number of years and in modernizing the physics curriculum in schools. He has been spokesperson of the working group for school physics of the Universities in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1998, and has arranged numerous events for teachers and specialists to improve the teaching of physics in schools. In 2000, he was coordinator of the very successful "Year of Physics", which was organized in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under Federal Minister Edelgard Bulmahn within the scope of the "Science in Dialogue" Initiative. In 2002, he took over responsibility for public relations as member of the board of directors of the German Physics Society (DPG). For his achievements "far beyond his field of work in strengthening the image of physics as a cultural asset and facet of general education and thus also making it accessible to the general public", he received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002.
