Draft:Thomas Görnitz

Thomas Görnitz (born June 22, 1943 in Leipzig) is a German physicist. Until 2009, he was a professor of physics education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.

Life

In 1961, after winning the GDR Mathematical Olympiad, Görnitz became the first German to win a prize at an International Mathematical Olympiad, receiving a bronze medal . After leaving school, Thomas Görnitz studied physics and mathematics at the University of Leipzig, where he received his doctorate in mathematical physics in 1973 (with a thesis on the topic of “On the Reduction of Representations of the Poincaré Group”).

After applying for an exit permit from the GDR in 1976, he worked as a gravedigger.

In 1979, he moved to Munich. There, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker won him over for a position at the Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt, (Max Planck Institute for Research into the Living Conditions of the Scientific-Technical World), and a long-standing collaboration on the physical and philosophical foundations of quantum physics and cosmology began.

From 1992 to 1994, he worked at the Institute for Mathematical Physics at the Technical University of Braunschweig and from 1994 to 2009 as a professor of physics education at the University of Frankfurt.

He was Chair of the Board of "Wissen und Verantwortung – Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker-Gesellschaft e. V." from its foundation in 1994 until 2016 and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Foundation from 2002 to 2016.

From 1996 to 2009, he was a member of the Working Group on Theology and Science and the Templeton Research Lectures Committee at the University of Frankfurt, and is a member of the Philosophy Working Group of the German Physical Society.

Family

Thomas Görnitz has been married to the veterinarian and psychologist Dr. Brigitte Görnitz since 1964 and has five children with her.

Research

Communicating modern physics and presenting it in an understandable way is a focus of his work, especially for quantum theory. He also researches the philosophical interpretation of quantum theory and cosmology.

In particular, Görnitz considers absolute, meaning-free bits of quantum information to be the basis of physics. He calls them Abstract bits of Quantum Information, AQIs, and subsumes this hypothesis under the term protyposis. The particles of relativistic quantum mechanics can be constructed from such quantum bits. He used the AQIs to explain the structure of space and time and to derive Einstein's equations of general relativity and the gauge groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3) of the standard model. He also sees a connection between his theory and the nature of consciousness.

Reception

His ideas and theories have not yet been accepted by mainstream physics and brain research. For most scientists there is no convincing evidence that quantum effects are relevant to the functioning of the mind. A growing minority already sees it differently.

Awards

2003: Michael and Biserka Baum Prize of the Frankfurt Association for Fundamental Physical Research and the Department of Physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt.

2009: Theophrastus Science Prize for Holistic Medicine (with Brigitte Görnitz).

Publications (selection)

• as editor: C. F. v. Weizsäcker: Die Sterne sind glühende Gaskugeln und Gott ist gegenwärtig. Herder, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-451-04077-8.
• Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker – a thinker on the threshold of the new millennium. Herder, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-451-04125-1.
• Quanta are different; the hidden unity of the world. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 978-3-827-40571-5.
• with Brigitte Görnitz: The Creative Cosmos; Mind and Matter from Quantum Information. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 978-3-827-41368-0.
• with Holger Lyre (ed.): Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker; The Structure of Physics. Springer Netherlands, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 1-4020-5234-0.
• with Brigitte Görnitz: Die Evolution des Geistigen; Quantum Physics – Consciousness – Religion. Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-56717-3.
• Quantum Theory as Universal Theory of Structures – Essentially from Cosmos to Consciousness in: Advances in Quantum Theory, ISBN 978-953-51-0087-4, Edited by: Ion I. Cotaescu, Publisher: InTech, February 2012 (Online)
• Carl Friedrich v. Weizsäcker – Physicist, Philosopher, Visionary. Weizsäcker Foundation, Enger 2012, ISBN 978-3-942711-01-2.
• with Brigitte Görnitz: From Quantum Physics to Consciousness – Cosmos, Mind and Matter. Springer-Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-49081-5
• Understanding Quantum Theory – Basic Concepts and Ideas. Hanser-Verlag, Munich 2022, ISBN 978-3-446-47225-9, updated and expanded edition, 2024, ISBN 978-3-446-48026-1.

External links

• Personal website
• Family website
• Profile at the University of Frankfurt
• Catalogue at the German National Library