Talk:Otto Rössler

Previous discussions without headers
The LHC launches this wednesday, September 9th, we should stay alert to any related events! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.45.71.82 (talk) 13:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Still here.129.2.167.219 (talk) 18:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Edits without Discussion
Dr. Rossler's history as a visiting Theoreretical Physics position at Lyngby University in Denmark was removed without prior discussion. I temporarily reverted the reference while it is researched for verification. I suggest that if the reference is disputed that a few days be given to verify the reference. --Jtankers (talk) 01:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I verified the reference at Otto DBpedia.org and University of Tübingen, Germany and Physical Review On-Line Archive. --Jtankers (talk) 01:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Hippie scientists article?
Referring to the "LHC controversy", should there be an article about those "Hippie"/"New Age"/"(so-called) Humanist" scientists defending the Good Nature against the Nasty Human Technology? (There is a bunch of them in the French speaking world, which I know best: Hubert Reeves, Albert Jacquard are clearly at the forefront of those.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.209.199.21 (talk) 13:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want to create such an article go ahead, although I imagine that after all your hard work someone will remove it for being antagonostic. Ninahexan (talk) 05:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

reorganize this article
I don't (yet) have an opinion on whether this should be deleted, but I notice this:
 * Rössler was born in Berlin. At the age of 17, he became an amateur radio operator (DR 9KF). After considering becoming a monk, Rössler chose to major in medicine, with a speciality in immunology, for ethical reasons.
 * Rössler was born in Berlin. At the age of 17, he became an amateur radio operator (DR 9KF). After considering becoming a monk, Rössler chose to major in medicine, with a speciality in immunology, for ethical reasons.

The material appears BEFORE any statement about why he's notable. That shouldn't happen. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:40, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Though I agree with Michael and the article really needs a re-write, the prod description of not notable is incorrect as with minimal research it's clear that even outside his notability for his opposition to the LHC, he has achieved notability in the fields of chaos theory and Rössler attractor. Even in its present state the article meets the first four of the general notability guidelines, I will remove the prod and suggest the editor if he wishes to pursue the deletion take it to AFD. Regards Khu  kri  07:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I've trimmed down the article and removed alot of ambiguous statements, that he was the strongest critic etc. The article certainly gave undue weight to his anti-LHC position including self published statements. I've added a reliably sourced article to show his involvement with the lawsuit etc and added his primary notability in the lede of the Rössler attractor etc. Khu  kri  09:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The "Rössler Attractor" itself is not notable, even though it has a Wikipedia page. Note the "Citation Needed" tags at that page.  There's an article on the "Rössler Attractor" at Scholarpedia, but that article is co-authored by Rössler himself, hence "original research" Cgwaldman (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * According to Google scholar, 1600 other papers cite Rössler's fundamental work on this attractor. Google books also has around 1400 hits. To me, that makes it look quite notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Missing incidents
I think it would be appropriate to include some of the history discussed in articles such as, , , and in this article, concerning Rössler and his wife's long-running battles with the University of Tübingen as well as his 1998 election candidacy. But given the sensitivity of this subject. It would be best done by someone who can read German and accurately summarize their content; Google translate doesn't do well with this style of German and I don't want to trust its half-translations. Anyone? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * PS as near as I can tell, the chronology runs something like this:
 * Rössler and his wife Reimara have been involved with a long-running series of disputes with their employer, the University of Tübingen, which they accuse of discrimination and of violations of academic freedom. In 1988, Reimara Rössler, a professor of medicine, was transferred to a different department within the university; in protest, she began working from home. The state of Baden-Württemberg sued her for failure to perform her assigned duties, as a result of which by 1996 she lost her job and was forced to give up a second home to refund her back pay. Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1994, Otto Rössler had been assigned to teach an introductory chemistry course according to the prescribed curriculum for medical students, but insisted instead on teaching his own material. After he was replaced in the course by another lecturer, he continued trying to give the lectures himself, and was removed by police several times. Because of these incidents, in 1995 a state official tried to force Rössler to undergo psychologic tests, but after international protests by many academics this plan was dropped. Rössler continued protesting against his and his wife's treatment by the university and in August 2001 he was caught defacing the university auditorium with spray paint in an attempt to draw attention to his protests.
 * —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You are right, this is a major omission in the article and it has been on my todo list for several years to correct it (for a long time, the article even carried the misleading claim "In June 2008 Rössler emerged in the public eye [with his LHC concerns]", whereas he had already received a lot of media attention due to these earlier events, and for his work on chaos theory).
 * I am a bit busy right now, but I am willing to write this up soon - feel free to nag me if I haven't gotten around to it by the end of this week.
 * Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Closer to two weeks now, so consider this your friendly nag. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:55, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you did a very good job writing this up. I just found my notes from 2008 and rounded the section off a bit. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I undid some of your changes. I want to keep the article in as neutral a tone as possible so that the reader can make their own judgement, rather than having our article lead readers to a particular judgement. My feeling is that some of the details you added are sensational in tone and tend to convey the impression of Rössler as being crazy, while I'd prefer to leave the article in a state that makes possible the alternative reading that he really is being unfairly persecuted so that readers can choose for themselves which of those two possibilities is more likely. Even though the sourcing seems solid here, I think we should be especially careful with a negative biography. The main reasons are to comply with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV but the litigious history of some of his associates is also another good reason for care. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:50, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

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