Jürgen Ehlers
| Jürgen Ehlers | |
|---|---|
At the award ceremony for the Charles University Medal in Potsdam, September 2007
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| Born |
29 December 1929 Hamburg, Germany |
| Died | 20 May 2008 (aged 78) Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
University of Hamburg Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics |
| Alma mater | University of Hamburg |
| Doctoral advisor | Pascual Jordan |
| Doctoral students | Thomas Buchert, Matthias Bartelmann |
| Known for |
General relativity Mathematical physics |
| Notable awards | Max Planck Medal (2002) |
Jürgen Ehlers (German: [ˈjʏʁɡŋ̩ ˈeːlɐs]; 29 December 1929 – 20 May 2008) was a German physicist who contributed to the understanding of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. From graduate and postgraduate work in Pascual Jordan's relativity research group at Hamburg University, he held various posts as a lecturer and, later, as a professor before joining the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich as a director. In 1995, he became the founding director of the newly created Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany.
Ehlers' research focused on the foundations of general relativity as well as on the theory's applications to astrophysics. He formulated a suitable classification of exact solutions to Einstein's field equations and proved the Ehlers–Geren–Sachs theorem that justifies the application of simple, general-relativistic model universes to modern cosmology. He created a spacetime-oriented description of gravitational lensing and clarified the relationship between models formulated within the framework of general relativity and those of Newtonian gravity. In addition, Ehlers had a keen interest in both the history and philosophy of physics and was an ardent populariser of science.
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