Ernst Schmutzer

Ernst Schmutzer (26 February 1930 – 20 February 2022) was a German theoretical physicist.

Life Early years

Ernst Schmutzer was born in 1930 in a small village in western Bohemia, which at that time had been part of Czechoslovakia for slightly more than a decade. By May 1945, when the war ended, he had attended schools in three different local villages. The area was occupied by the Americans on 1 May 1945, and less than a year later the entire German speaking population had been expelled. Schmutzer's schooling continued across the border in Weiden. By the time he passed his school final exams in 1949 for which he was supervised by Hans Falkenhagen, concerned Electrolyte. After this, in 1955 he obtained a position as a research assistant at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena which is where in 1958 he obtained his habilitation (a higher academic qualification). This invokes five space-time dimensions including a massive supplementary scalar field which, according to Schmutzer, can serve as an explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe identified in the 1990s (as a candidate for dark energy) and for the Pioneer effect. According to Schmutzer's theory the singularities of General relativity theory are smoothed, so that instead of a "Big bang" singularity, matter begins with a more gentle progression which Schmutzer termed an "Urstart".

Politics Politics was peripheral to Ernst Schmutzer's career, but in the German Democratic Republic it was hard to entirely ignore the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party. He joined the SED (party) in 1949, but was then expelled from it in 1958. The official report contained the conclusions that Schmutzer was in a fundamental disagreement with Party Policy regarding the practical transformation of the university. Following months of discussions in which Dr. Schmutzer had shown total disregard for party policy regarding scientific work, the conclusion was reached that his membership in the party could only be damaging to it, and he was expelled from the party. Political exclusion turned out less damaging to Schmutzer's career than might have been anticipated. In Jena he created a School of Gravitation Physics, members of which include Hans Stephani, Dietrich Kramer and Eduard Herlt, and which has established a name for itself, most notably, with investigation of precise solutions for the Einstein field equations. Between 1980 and 1990 he was a principal editor of the scientific journal "Experimentelle Technik der Physik".

Schmutzer's published output includes a comprehensive textbook on Theoretical Physics as well as an Introduction to Relativity Theory. His latest volume, "Fünfdimensionale Physik" ("Five Dimensional Physics"), appeared in 2009 and was republished in 2014.

Awards, honours and memberships 1969: Member Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 1977: Carus Medal and Carus Prize from the city of Schweinfurt (awarded by the Leopoldina Academy) 1978: Service Medal from the Charles University in Prague 1981: National Prize of East Germany 1990: Corresponding Member German Academy of Sciences at Berlin (till 1992) 1990: Member Academy of Practical and Applied Sciences at Erfurt 1991: Member Saxonian Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1995: Member Sudeten-German Academy of Arts and Sciences 2005: Name entered in the "Golden Book" of the City of Jena

In Jena Ernst Schmutzer was an honorary member of the Burschenschaft Arminia auf dem Burgkeller (Arminius Student Fraternity of the City [hostelry] Cellar).