University of Karlsruhe

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The Universität Karlsruhe (TH) is a mainly technical university in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany and is a leading research university. It is among the five universities in Germany with the strongest effort in research[Universität Karlsruhe top in numerous university rankings]. In the natural sciences there is no university nationwide getting more money from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft than the Universität Karlsruhe[Exzellent in Naturwissenschaften. 03.07.2003].

The faculty of chemistry belongs to "the cream of the crop in chemistry" in the world.[ScienceWatch: Chemistry Research. Institutions Ranked by Citations and Citation Impact. July/August 1998]

Contents

1 History
2 Faculties
3 Famous people and discoveries
4 Presidents
5 References
6 External links

History

The University of Karlsruhe was founded as a Polytechnische Schule (polytechnical school) on October 7, 1825 having as an example the École polytechnique in Paris. As such it is the first Technical University or Technische Hochschule (TH) in Germany. In 1865 Grand Duke Frederick I of Baden (German: Friedrich) raised the school to the status of Hochschule (roughly "college"), and the university has also been known since 1902 as the Fridericiana in his honour. In 1885 the institution was renamed a Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology), and in 1967 it became a university.

On April 6, 2006 the contract for the foundation of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) was signed by Prof. Horst Hippler and Dr. Dieter Ertmann from the University of Karlsruhe and Prof. Manfred Popp and Ass.jur. Sigurd Lettow from Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.

Faculties

The university has 11 faculties:

Many departments cooperate, some are shared with the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe.

Famous people and discoveries

Ferdinand Redtenbacher (1809-1863), founder of mechanical engineering in Germany .
Carl Benz (1844-1929), the inventor of the automobile, studied here and received an honorary Ph.D. in 1914.
Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850-1918) developed the cathode ray tube in 1897 which is widely used in today's televisions. In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for it.
Otto Lehmann (1855-1922), the "father" of liquid crystal research.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894) discovered electromagnetic waves in 1887 which are the basis of radio. The SI unit of frequency, hertz is named after him.
Fritz Haber (1868-1934) developed the high-pressure synthesis of ammonia in 1909 and won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918.
Wolfgang Gaede (1878-1945) founded vacuum technology.
Wilhelm Nusselt (1882-1957) co-founded technical thermodynamics.
Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965) won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1953, for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.
Edward Teller (1908-2003) known as the father of the hydrogen bomb

Presidents

1968 - 1983 Professor Dr. Dr.-Ing. h. c. Heinz Draheim
1983 - 1994 Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz Kunle
1994 - 2002 Professor Dr. Sigmar Wittig
2002 - current Professor Dr. sc. tech. Horst Hippler[Office of the President of Universität Fridericiana]

References

External links

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