Few scientific gatherings are as prestigious as the famous annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Two students from the North-West University (NWU) have the honour of being chosen to attend the 2019 event.
In the wake of the Second World War, the science community was reunited by the efforts of Count Lennart Bernadotte, grandson of King Gustaf V of Sweden. At the request of two physicians, Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Wilhelm Parade, the Count brought seven Nobel Laureates together to participate in the first European Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Medicine in 1951, held in Lindau, Germany.
Today, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings bring together 30 Nobel Laureates to meet the next generation of leading scientists: the 500 to 600 brightest undergraduates, PhD students and researchers in the world at the time.
This year, two students will represent the NWU at the event, which has been running for 70 years.
Hester Schutte, a PhD student, and Hannes Thiersen, an MSc student, both from the Centre for Space Research in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, have been selected to participate in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.
“Being selected is an incredible achievement, and having two candidates from the same university is phenomenal,” explains faculty liaison, Ashleigh Pieterse. “What makes this even more extraordinary is that both students are being supervised by the same expert, Prof Markus Boettcher.”
Both students conduct their PhD and MSc research in the field of high-energy astrophysics. They specifically study the violent processes near supermassive black holes in the centres of distant galaxies (called “active galaxies”), which lead to the expulsion of streams (“jets”) of gas shooting out from these central regions with speeds near the speed of light.
“Hester has developed a theoretical model to exploit polarisation observations taken with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) near Sutherland to indirectly measure the mass of the black holes in these active galaxies”, explains Prof Boettcher.
“Hannes simulates the long-term variability of the radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray emission from such active galaxies using state-of-the-art theoretical models.”
These meetings foster exchange among scientists of different generations, cultures and disciplines, and focus alternately on physiology and medicine, on physics and on chemistry – the three natural science Nobel Prize disciplines.
An interdisciplinary meeting revolving around all three natural sciences is held every five years. In addition, the Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences is held every three years.
The scientific programme of each Lindau meeting is based on the principle of dialogue. The different sessions – lectures, discussions, master classes and panel discussions – are designed to activate the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience between and among Nobel Laureates and young scientists.
The 69th meeting will be held from 30 June to 5 July 2019.
Hester Schutte
Hannes Thiersen
