Hans-Jürgen Treder

Hans -Jürgen Treder (* September 4, 1928, † November 18, 2006 in Potsdam ) was one of the leading theoretical physicists and astrophysicists in the GDR and internationally recognized authority in the field of gravitational physics ( general relativity theory and its extensions) and cosmology. He also dealt with the history of science and philosophy.

Life

Treder took an early interest in physics and showed his great talent. While still a student he sought contact with Werner Heisenberg in 1944 in Berlin, who also received him and discussed with him. When Volkssturm used as a teenager for courier services, he coined thanks to his photographic memory arrest lists, and warned those affected. After the war he studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin physics and philosophy. In 1956 he received his doctorate and was then from 1957 research assistant at the Research Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences. Immediately after the Habilitation in 1962 he was created in 1963 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Humboldt University and Director of the Academy Institute of Pure Mathematics. With work on gravitational radiation at that time he won international recognition. In 1965, he was instrumental in organizing the conference for 50 - year anniversary of the publication of Einstein's field equations.

In 1966 he became a full member of the German Academy of Sciences and was Director of the Babelsberg Observatory of the Academy of Sciences. After the reorganization in 1969, he headed the newly founded Central Institute for Astrophysics ( ZIAP ), in which the previously independent observatories in Potsdam, the Babelsberg Observatory, the Sonneberg Observatory and the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory Tautenburg were summarized. Until 1973, he also led the research field Cosmic Physics of the Academy of Sciences, in which the astrophysics and geophysics has been Digested. Then he gave the reasons of health and focused on the management of the ZIAP. He not only made it a center of theoretical gravitational physics, but also integrated as MGD (in collaboration with Max Steenbeck ) - which played an important role in astrophysics immediately after the theory of gravity in the model training - and Geophysics (in collaboration with Hans Ertel ), which was formative in Potsdam later. Einstein's 100th birthday in 1979, he managed to secure the summer house of Einstein in Caputh as a guest of the Academy in consultation with the administrators of the estate of Otto Nathan, Einstein. In 1982 he handed over the ZIAP to his successor, Karl -Heinz Schmidt. Treder was director and founder of the Einstein Laboratory of the Academy in Potsdam- Caputh, which he remained until 1992. He has published in the last years of his life with his friend, the geophysicist Wilfried Schröder, many works in the Geo - physics and the cosmos, including the solar variability. In addition, the edition of the book Einstein and geophysics, as well as some volumes of the works of Hans Ertel. Focus of her work were also the solar minima ( Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minima ) and the physical consequences for the solar activity. Treder was chairman of the International Society "History of Geophysics and Cosmical Physics".

Treder enjoyed high praise in the GDR ( he received including the National Prize of the GDR ) and the full confidence of the political leadership, and he enjoyed privileges such as full freedom of travel and a private car with chauffeur.

Decisions taken by Treder as head of ZIAPs, were controversial in the scientific community. So he ordered the withdrawal of all astronomers in 1969 the GDR from the Astronomical Society, responsible for the entire German-speaking professional association of astronomers at. In 1969, he decided to close the Sonneberg Observatory and said a ban on watching the large telescopes of the observatory from what would have resulted in attention to abort one of the longest photographic series of observations of the world ( Sonneberg plate archive photo ). After intervention by Wolfgang Wenzel and international protests he corrected later but both decisions.

Calls from the West refused Treder from, he was not only an avowed Marxist, but felt also the History of Science in Berlin closely connected, about which he later wrote some books. He unfolded a high scientific productivity and published nearly 500 individual contributions and more than 20 monographs. Among other things, he worked intensively (initially at the suggestion of Gustav Hertz ) with the Mach's principle, about which he published in 1972 a monograph.

He lived later on the grounds of the Babelsberg Observatory, but was increasingly maverick and could after the turn not maintain its leading role in the scientific organization; from which he had retired, however, already in the 1980s, when he increasingly turned to the history of science and philosophy of science ( for example, he led a correspondence with Karl Popper ).

Treder was a member of the Leibniz law firm.

Works

Monographs on Gravitational Physics:

  • Gravitational shock waves. Non-analytic wave solutions of Einstein's field equations, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1962
  • With Horst- Heino von Borzeszkowski, Alwyn van der Merwe, Wolfgang Your Gray: Fundamental principles of general relativity theories: local and global aspects of gravitation and cosmology. Plenum Press, New York 1980
  • The relativity of inertia. Berlin 1972
  • Theory of gravity and the equivalence principle, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1971
  • Eckhard with gyro, Dierck - Ekkehard Liebscher: To Quantengeometrodynamik - Collected works, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1967 ( Series of the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences)
  • With HH of Borzeszkowski: The meaning of quantum gravity, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1988
  • With Jan Peter Mücket: Greater Cosmic systems - to the telescopic aspects of gravitation and inertia-free Gravidynamik, Akademie Verlag, 1981 ( Publications of the Research Field Earth and cosmos sciences )
  • Max Steenbeck: possibilities of experimental gravity research, Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1984

For the history of science, philosophy of science and more popular writings of Treder:

  • Great physicists and their problems - Studies in the History of Physics, Academy Verlag, 1983
  • Relativity and the Cosmos. Space and time in physics, astronomy and cosmology, Vieweg, Wiesbaden, 1982, 119 pages
  • About principles of the dynamics of Einstein, Hertz, Mach and Poincare, WTB, Akademie Verlag. Berlin 1974
  • Philosophical problems of physical space: Gravitation, geometry, cosmology and relativity, Akademie Verlag 1974
  • Relativity and the universe - space and time in physics, astronomy and cosmology, WTB, Akademie Verlag 1968
  • With Wilfried Schröder: Einstein and Geophysics, Bremen, Science Edition 2005.

Books by Robert Rompe:

  • Fundamental questions of physics - past, present and future of fundamental physics research, WTB, Akademie Verlag 1980
  • Elementary cosmology, Akademie Verlag 1975
  • Elementary constants and what they mean, WTB, Akademie Verlag 1988
  • Counting and measuring, WTB, Akademie Verlag 1985
  • On the Unity of the exact sciences, WTB, 1982
  • About the physics, Akademie Verlag 1979
  • With Rompe, Werner Ebeling: To the great Berlin physics (lectures at the Annual Meeting 1987 of the Physical Society of the GDR in the jubilee year 750 years Berlin), Leipzig, Teubner 1987

Online accessible essays by Treder:

  • Wilfried Schröder, Treder Einstein's last lecture - observability, reality and completeness in quantum and relativity
  • Schröder, Treder science and religion
  • Schröder, Treder The Einstein Laue Discussion
  • Schröder, Treder Farewell to the World Formula - 100 years ago, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg was born
  • Schröder, Treder Hans Ertel and Cosmology
East Germany Albert Einstein German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam Caputh, Brandenburg Astronomische Gesellschaft Gustav Ludwig Hertz Mach's principle Alexander von Humboldt Integrated Authority File
373593
de