Outstanding basic Research – Physics of today for tomorrow

At the end of their lives, stars explode as supernovae. In doing so, an enormous amount of energy is released and gases are flung out into the universe – an event of great interest to physicists. Thomas Greif, a doctoral student at the Heidelberg Graduate School of Fundamental Physics, simulates such stellar explosions using the Texas supercomputer to handle the tremendous volume of data that are generated. This extensive collaboration between Heidelberg and Texas was made possible for Thomas’ through being in the Heidelberg Graduate School. Heidelberg scientists and doctoral students also play a key role in the development of many other spectacular physics experiments worldwide – such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. A deep understanding of the fundamental interactions in physics, an exciting research programme, intensive student mentoring programme, coupled with a worldwide network form the main values of the Graduate School, in order to train a new generation of young scientists with a view to developing the future today.