Heinz Oberhummer

Heinz Oberhummer was an Austrian physicist and skeptic.

Biography
Heinz Oberhummer was born in Bischofshofen and grew up in Obertauern, Austria. He studied physics at the University of Graz and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He lived in the village of Oberwölbling in the Dunkelsteinerwald, Lower Austria. Heinz Oberhummer was married and had two children.

Research fields
Heinz Oberhummer was professor emeritus of Theoretical Physics at the Atominstitut of the Vienna University of Technology. His main research area was nucleosynthesis. He was also involved in questions concerning the fine-tuning of the Universe. Oberhummer, Csótó und Schlattl were able to derive quantifiable results concerning the fine-tuning of the Universe by investigating the creation of carbon and oxygen in the triple-alpha process in red giants.

He was the initiator of Nuclei in the Cosmos, the most important international conference series in the field of nuclear astrophysics taking place for the tenth time in the year 2008 at Michigan State University in the United States.

He was especially engaged in the popularisation of scientific contents, including the new media. He developed Web-based learning and information systems and co-ordinated educational projects funded by the European Commission, such as Cinema and Science. He was also engaged in the creation and presentation of popular science with the Science Busters in the Rabenhof Theater in Vienna along with Werner Gruber and Martin Puntigam and as a weekly radio column and podcast in the Austrian youth radio station FM4.

He was member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation and the Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP), the German-speaking branch of the worldwide skeptical movement. Furthermore, he was president of the "Gesellschaft für Kritisches Denken" (the Austrian branch of the GWUP), and of the Austrian "Zentralrat für Konfessionsfreie" (National Council of Non-confessionals. Heinz Oberhummer was president of the secularist initiative "Religion ist Privatsache" (Religion is a private matter). He died in Vienna on 23 November 2015.

Oberhummer Award
After Oberhummer's death, the Heinz Oberhummer Award for Science Communication was established in his honor. The award is presented by the Science Busters, the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research until 2019), the Technical University of Vienna, the University of Graz, the City of Vienna, FM4 and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation.

Oberhummer Award winners receive a glass of alpaca droppings and 20.000 euros. The annual ceremony takes place in the Stadtsaal in Vienna and is broadcast on national television.

Selected publications

 * Kann das alles Zufall sein – Geheimnisvolles Universum?, Ecowin-Verlag, Salzburg, 2008, ISBN 978-3902404541
 * H. Oberhummer: Urknall und Sternenstaub – Der Kosmos aus naturwissenschaftlicher Sicht In Die Idee vom Anfang, Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt, Wién, 2008, ISBN 978-3898464949
 * H. Oberhummer: Maßarbeit oder Zufall – sind wir nicht anderes als Sternenstaub? In Der etwas andere Blick auf die Schöpfung, Haag + Herrchen: Frankfurt, 2007, ISBN 978-3898464949
 * H. Oberhummer (Editor): Nuclei in the Cosmos, Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 1991, ISBN 0387541985
 * H. Oberhummer, A. Patkos, T. Rauscher: Origin of the Chemical Elements. In: Handbook of Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 2, Kap. 1, Kluwer, 2003, ISBN 1402013051
 * H. Oberhummer, A. Csótó, H. Schlattl: Stellar production rates of carbon and its abundance in the Universe, Science 289, 2000, 88
 * H. Oberhummer: Kerne und Sterne: Einführung in die Nukleare Astrophysik. In German. Barth, Leipzig, Berlin, Heidelberg 1993, ISBN 3335003195