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So you're the one who reads prefaces?
Thank you - but why are you doing this? They are usually quite boring.
I'll take it that you are interested in one or both of the two major topics
typically dealt with in prefaces:
- Why did the author spend his time and
mostly somebody other's money on writing whatever he (or she, of course) wrote?
Here is the "why question"
once more.
- Who really did the work (besides
grad
students). That's what induces some otherwise rather normal people to read
prefaces: they expect to be mentioned there.
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So why did I do this? Why do
professors generally write a lot? More or less in order to to keep their job or
to get a better one at more upbeat university. Scientific books or publications
increase one's ranking (as expressed, for example, in the "Hirsch
factor"), and that translates sooner or later into money. It goes without
saying that we also want to know how the universe ticks (or the world, silicon
crystals, woman,... ) and that our lot also wants to further human knowledge or
world peace; sometimes both. You even might impress your young kids (but not
your wife or your teenagers) by your written output. |
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Good reasons - but not really why I
wrote this hyperscript. I started work on
iron and steel because I simply wanted to understand the stuff I taught in
undergraduate classes. The Materials Science and Engineering study course I
introduced 1993 in Kiel focussed on "functional materials" like
semiconductors, ion conductors or metal- polymer composites. But we just could
not ignore metals in general and iron and steel in particular in these basic
undergraduate courses. Of course, all materials science and engineering
professors know the basics of metal science and can teach that cold or while
under the influence of beer. They can even teach specifics that they do not
really understand as long as they are a few pages ahead of the students in some
suitable text book. I was doing that to some extent but felt increasingly
uncomfortable with that time-honored approach. |
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The turning point for me came in the
year 2000. While participating in a conference in Madrid that dealt (in depth!)
with porous semiconductors, I bought a sword during an outing to Toledo. I
needed one since I always used
Siegfried's
sword as a paradigm of structural materials in my classes. Why, I asked my
students, was it much harder after forging and quenching, considering that the
chemical composition has not changed? When in Toledo I accidentially run across
a smithy containing a smith forging a sword, I vaguely recalled that Toledo was
somehow famous for sword making and bought a big sword on impulse. I felt that
it could help me in the class room to get the point across. That was indeed the
case. If my students remember one thing about my undergraduate lectures, it was
the ritual beheading of Kent and Barbie with a real big crusader-type sword.
(I've reared two daughters around then. Beheading their Barbie dolls every once
in a while helps to stay sane. Try it!).
It is worthwhile to mention how I got that (large) sword back to Germany. The
smith wrapped in into old newspaper and wound some string around it. Then I
took the package into the airplane as hand-luggage. Nobody thought anything
about that. Those were the good old pre 9/11 times. |
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Watching the smith in Toledo doing his thing, I
seemed to remember that Toledo was somehow tied to damascene technique so I
asked the smith if he was forging a damascene sword? He only snorted in
disgust, telling me that he and his ancestors, all of them smiths down to Roman
times, didn't need to go for this inferior outlandish stuff since they could do
much better.
This puzzled me to to some extent and back in Kiel I looked up "damascene
technique" and so on. What I found out was that I didn't know a thing
about the topic, just like almost everybody else, and that there was a lot of
fascinating stuff hiding in the background. I then proceeded to educate myself
a bit (in particular with
Manfred Sachse's
book) and wrote two "on-the-side" modules for my regular lecture
hyperscripts:
- Damascene Technique in Metal Working. This was (and is) is an
advanced module in the "Defects in Crystals" hyperscript intended for
graduate classes.
- A Brief History of Steel. This was originally a (German) module in a
hyperscipt for undergraduate classes but became finalized in the
"Defects" Hyperscript.
These two modules (out of 228 in the "defect" hyperscript) had a
totally unforeseen and unplanned effect: they came up for many years as No 1 in
search engines whenever you typed in a key word related to the topic. As far as
the Internet was concerned, I was now the expert on iron, steel and sword things! |
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That was most gratifying
but put me back on square one. I was now on top of my stundents when it came to
simple iron and steel science but I most certainly was not the authority on sword forging throughout the
millennia.
Or maybe I was?
While some scientists certainly knew far more about the subject than I, they
had typically not communicated that to the general public and whatever they did
write was certainly not available in the Internet. Some had written books upon
the subject - just look a the list
here. But no book
covered everything, many were outdated, and you could not find these books in
the Net. For you young guys out there: The Net wasn't always around,
surprisingly enough! Before about 1995 you can just forget about it. There
weren't even flat panel displays! People had to read books. |
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Being outdated was almost unavoidable for books
written before 1980 -1990, say. There are several reasons for that, none within
the author's responsibilty:
- The basic scientific understanding of what, exactly, is going on inside a
crystal when somebody hits it with a hammer had developed after 1960, and in
1980 it was still rather restricted knowledge. One simply could not expect that
scientists outside the small circle of insiders should have known much about
dislocation theory and so on. Only when (more or less retired) insiders like
Rolf Hummel
and Stever Sass
wrote their books, a general public could for the first time learn something
about the science behind plastic deformation.
- Metallurgical investigations into old iron / steel were rare. The
analytical methods available then were tedious and rather destructive and
archaeologist were reluctant to part with specimen. Archaeologists also were
typically humanists, fluent in many dead languages but not in metallurgy. Their
interest in dark spots in the ground (former smelters), slag heaps and pieces
of heavily corroded somethings was rather limited.
- Archaeometallurgy and working with smiths, for example, was almost unnown.
In 1980 there were hardly any smiths around anyway, so debates about pattern
welding techniques or how to make a wootz sword were academic at best.
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So in 2000 I was not the the scientific authority on sword forging
throughout the millennia. Maybe
Radomir
Pleiner was. Or whoever. But these guys still did not address a rapidly
growing number of interested people without a science background and not given
to reading expensive science books. I did, and in updating my pages I learned
more and more about the subject. I also came up with more and more questions
for which I couldn't find answers.
I didn't worry too much about that. I needed all my worrying potential for
keeping up in my own field, getting money for research and keeping my grad
students happy; not to mention seeing my kids through high school and
university. |
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Then out of the blue,
Hermann Hampe
approached me, asking if I would write a bit about the making of swords for a
new book that he and his buddy Vic Diehl planned to publish. I agreed, got to
work, and came up with some text. Delving into the topic I learned a lot but
also run across new questions. Some questions did not find good answers but I
wrote about these topics anyway. My text in the book actually does contain a
few blunders, see if you can find them (you need to buy the book first!). |
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The book came out in 2012 and around
this time I decided to produce a Hyperscript based on the text in the book. A
hyperscript can have all these modules "on the side" where I could
elucidate some details that could just not be part of a regular text in a
regular book. |
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However! One detail lead to another one, and
eventually the old text had to be augmented. New chapters and sub chapters
became necessary because I wanted to include everything important (like phase
diagrams). Looking for one thing in the Internet often lead to discoveries in
other fields that needed to be included somewhere. Visiting museums provided
for great pictures and questionable explanations that needed to be addressed,
necessitating yet more modules. The whole thing got out of hand.
At some point I decided:
Be cool! Why
don't I include just about everything somehow connected to iron steel and
swords? Or possibly not even connected but fun to do?
Now you know: |
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I did this because it was (and is)
great fun!
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That's all. I like to learn and find out things
and I like to write it up for myself. I don't mind sharing it with you and
that's why I put it in the Net. If you like it I'm pleased. If you don't I'm
not pleased but don't care all that much. I have not written this hyperscript
for you (or for making money) so take it or leave it. |
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Time for acknowledgements. I readily
acknowlegde that in my 350 or so research papers lots of others did a lot or
most of the work. This Hyperscript, however, is almost exclusively mine. Pretty
much every drawing has been done by me (that explains the poor quality) and the
text has been written by me and only by me.
Nevertheless I want to mention a few people that were of help. Foremost my
co-worker and asssistent Jürgen
Carstensen who worked with me for more
than 20 years. In contrast to me he not only knows his math (he was born a
theoretical physicist) but can program any computer to do amazing things. When
I started around 1995 to assemble the first "multimedia" modules, as
we called it then, he came up with the structural concept for this plus the
"check" program that automatically produces all these lists and
catches the errors in the file tree. That platform was absolutely perfect and I
still use it. |
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I have extensively used the work of others, of
course. I have tried to give precise references in all cases and sincerely hope
that I did not make too many mistakes. I did ask permission to use many
pictures but quite often I got no answer. In many case, however, I got not only
permission but some help. I like to mention a few people in this context:
- Ingo Petri,a budding archaeologist and almost a PhD student of mine, who
supplied we with much material, knowledge and good advice, together with
Jan-Hendrik Morjan, a grad student of mine who, by definition, did (some of)
the work.
- Bruno Overlaet frOm the Brussels museum of art and hIstory who is "the
" Luristan experet and who helped me along on that the highly interesting
Luristan iron mask sword topic.
- Andreas Hauptmann and Ünsal Yalçýn from Bochum, Germany,
who not only let me have material but whose work I found particularly
enlightening.
- Other scientists like Isabelle Caneva, Peter Crew, Ann Feuerbach, Alfred
Geibig, Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani, Dierk Raabe and Stefan Maeder, whose
work and on occasion direct input was instrumental for the Hyperscript.
- Manfred Sachse needs to be mentioned. His book not only was instrumental on
starting me on this business but still supplies valuable infomation. He is one
the "hands-on" guys without whom we scientists could not possibly
find out how "it" was really done. I also owe quite a bit to many
ohers doing smithing and smelting and want to mention Patrick Bárta, Ric
Furrer, Jeff Pringle, Lee Sauder and Claes Vahlberg here.
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Thank you all - your work was important to me!
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Something about Me
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Title: |
Prof. Dr. rer. nat.
Just so you know. |
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Present
Position: |
Retired
Former
Chairholder
"Materials Science" in the Materials Science group of the Faculty
of Engineering; Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel (CAU), Germany
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What I did
in Kiel |
Retirement is a good point
in time to take stock. The "Hochschulgesetz" of Schleswig-Holstein,
if memory serves, requests a professor to be active in the following areas:
Research, Teaching, Production of young academics,
adequate Participation within the autonomous administration, and
Technology transfer.
It does not request reproduction; I did that on the side.
So here goes: |
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Research:
About 350 publications (including about 70 from before the CAU time). Almost
all in refereed journals and books, leading to a "Hirsch factor" of
36.
One of the two initiators and speaker of the "DFG - Schwerpunkt:
Photonische
Kristalle". Successful proposals for about 5.4 Mio € third-party
funds, enabling, among many other things, the building of the "Kieler
Nanolab". |
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Teaching:
Key role in the introduction of the study courses "Dipl.-Ing.
Materialwissenschaft" in 1992 and "Master of Materials Science and
Engineering" in 1999. 11 new lecture courses were conceived from scratch
and taught most of the time. All lecture courses are augmented by
"hyperscipts", freely accessible in the Net, that enjoy considerable
international appreciation. (2014: 18 Mio requests from 1.5 Mio users; 7 TB
downloads).
Teaching award of the state of Schleswig-Holstein in 2001; special prize from
Siemens AG for excellence in teaching Engineers in 2001. |
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Production of young
academics
Acted for 25 Ph.D's as first advisor and for a comparable number as second
adviser. Several post-docs acquired special knowledge; at least 5 are now
professors or pursuing an academic career. |
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Participation within
the autonomous CAU / Science administration
Founding dean and twice elected dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 1991 -
2000. Vice dean until 2002.
Many innovations I introduced at the start of the School of Engineering are
still in place (e.g. internal financing with a global budget).
Member of the CAU senate and various boards, Chairman of the Materials Science
examination board, executive director of the Institute for Materials Science
and so on for far more years than I care to remember. Member or chairman of
boards of many science organizations (Technologiestiftung S.-H., ISIT Itzehoe,
GKSS Geesthacht, MPI Halle, Forschungszentrum Jülich, …). Chairman of
more than 15 "Berufungskommissionen" and many
"Promotionsausschüsse". DFG "Vertrauensdozent for 12 years.
Founder of the "Förderverein der Technischen Fakultät",
plus considerable fund raising activities for this entity; e.g. about 15
stipends for foreign master students over a period of several years. |
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Curriculum Vitae
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| 2/55 - 5/67 |
Born in Backnang;
Baden-Württemberg |
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Yes! - I am a
Suebian. |
| 2/55 - 5/67 |
Elementary and High-School; in
Geisingen (now Freiberg/N) and Ludwigsburg; Baden-Württemberg |
| 6/67 - 12/73 |
Student of Physics; University
of Stuttgart |
| 12/73 - 5/76 |
Thesis work at the
Max-Planck-Institut for Metal Physics in Stuttgart and the University of
Stuttgart (Advisor: Prof. Seeger/Prof. Wilkens) |
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Mostly radiation induced defects in
Si and "swirl defects" in Si; partially in cooperation with Siemens,
Munic |
| 1/77 - 12/79 |
Post-doc; Cornell University;
Mat. Science Dept. |
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Grain boundaries in Si, defects in
solar Si (remember the oil crisis?) |
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Most important achievement: Met
future wife! |
| 1/79 - 6/80 |
Visiting Scientist at the IBM
T. J. Watson Res. Lab. in Yorktown Heights |
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Mostly Silicides; some defects in Si;
Started with electrochemistry of Si |
| 11/80 - 9/91 |
Various Positions with Siemens in
Munich |
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Some solar Silicon; mostly
microelectronics; plenty of organization and management jobs |
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Electrochemistry of Si on the side
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Last position: Project leader of
Siemens 16Mbit DRAM Project |
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Most important achievement: Married
Sara; reproduced 3 times (You learn from making DRAMs that redundancy is
important). |
| 10/91 - 07/94 |
Professor (Chair for Material
Science) |
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And - more important - first
(appointed) Dean of the new Faculty of Engineering of the University of
Kiel (with exactly 2 faculty staff members to
manage) |
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Being the dean also means lots of
side jobs, not all of which were always fun. Some lasted 8 years.
- Vorsitzender wiss. Beirat der Technologiestiftung Schleswig-Holstein und
Vorsitzender /Mitglied div. Unterausschüsse.
- Mitglied wiss. Beirat der GKSS Geesthacht
- Miglied wiss. Beirat Festkörperphysik; Großforschungszentrum
Jülich
- Mitglied Kuratorium ISiT
- Mitglied Kuratorium MPI Mikrostrukturphysik Halle
- Mitglied Arbeitsgruppe "RISI"
- Gründungsmitglied und Vorstandsmitglied Förderverein der TF
- Als Dekan Mitglied im Senat und Konsistorium der CAU Kiel
- Mitglied/Vertreter der TF in sämtlichen Ausschüssen der CAU
(Haushalt, Studien, Forschungs und Wissenstransfertransfer,...)
- Vorsitzender des Fakultätskonvents
- Prüfungsausschußvorsitzender Materialwissenschaft
- Vorsitzender in > 15 Berufungsverfahren
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| 7/94 - 7/96 |
Elected Dean (now with
about 200 faculty staff members to manage; not to mention students) |
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Still plenty of "honor"
jobs and memberships of various boards. |
| 7/96 - 7/98 |
Encore! Once more elected Dean
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| 7/98 - 7/00 |
Free at
last! |
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But new things come up: Speaker of
the "DFG - Schwerpunkt Photonische Kristalle"; still member of
various boards and, not to forget, the vice president of the
"Förderverein" of the Techische Fakultät (the one who does
the work). |
| 7/00 - 10/14 |
Getting there! No longer Vice Dean!
Just a Professor. |
| 12/01 |
"Teaching Award" of the
State of Schleswig Holstein (DM 20.000.-) |
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And a special price of Siemens for
excellence in teaching engineers (3 Fujitsu-Siemens "Lifebooks").
In both cases mostly for "pioneering work" in providing Net-based
teaching material (Check with the link "Hyperscripts of AMAT" above).
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Initiated "ET&TE
GmbH" together with coworkers from the Chair. |
| 6/06 |
Visions occurred and started
something big: The "Kiel Nanolab". Neatly funneled off 1.9 Mio from
the "Kultusministerium" that almost would have been used for
something else. |
| 1/07 |
Caught
Again!
- "Executive Director" of the Institute of Materials Science.
(Geschäftsführender Direktor).
- "Vertrauensdozent" of the DFG at the CAU (since Oct. 2003).
- And still vice president of the "Förderverein" of the
Technische Fakultät.
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| 11/09 |
Getting ready. No longer "Head
of Examination Board" of Materials Science.
(Prüfungsausschussvorsitzender). |
| 10/14 |
Done! Finally I was allowed to retire, 9 months after my
65th birthday.
But still "Vertrauensdozent" of the DFG at the CAU (since Oct. 2003).
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"Goldene Ehrennadel" (Badge of
honor?) of the CAU for having been a good guy |
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Dimitris Cantomir medal from
the Academy of Science, Moldova, for "promoting long-standing excellent
cooperations" with Moldova.
If you don't know who Dimitro Cantomir was, you will find his bust in a park in
Istanbul, next to that of Willi Brand: |
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| Dimitri Cantomir (and fan) in a park in
Istanbul |
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| 4/15 |
Well Done!
Prof Kienle now is "Vertrauensdozent" of the DFG at the CAU. No more
jobs with the University |
| 4/15 - now |
Cheers! |
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| Cheers! |
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