In Memoriam: Heinz Oberhummer (1941–2015)

Abstract

Heinz Oberhummer was an Austrian nuclear physicist with extraordinary interests. As a child he grew up in a remote mountainous area not far from Salzburg. There he gazed at the stars at night and hoped to receive a star map as a Christmas present. When he did not get it, he was very disappointed. At the age of 14 he went by boat to New York, hitchhiked about 8,000 km to San Francisco, and spent two years at the High School in Los Gatos, Santa Clara County. After the Californian experience he returned to Austria and finished Gymnasium in Salzburg. Then he studied Physics and Mathematics at the University of Graz, where he received his PhD in 1970. Shortly thereafter he joined the Atominstitut of the University of Technology in Vienna (TU Wien), where he became a professor of Theoretical Physics. Remembering his admiration of the starry sky during his childhood, Oberhummer's main research focused on nuclear astrophysics. In 1990 he organized the first International Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos in the historic spa town of Baden near Vienna. This symposium developed into a bi-annual meeting of nuclear astrophysicists around the world, and continues till today. The 14th International Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos will take place in Niigata, Japan, 19–24 June 2016.