Good news for the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan region: The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved the establishment of a Research Training Group in the field of gravitational physics at the Universities of Oldenburg and Bremen. The Research Training Group "Models of Gravity", which was proposed by Prof. Dr Jutta Kunz (University of Oldenburg) and Prof. Dr Claus Lämmerzahl (University of Bremen), will officially start in April 2012 with eleven doctoral students and two postdoctoral researchers. A total of 30 students will participate. The aim of the Research Training Group is to investigate the effects of gravity particularly with regard to practical applications. With the first Research Training Group in Germany to focus exclusively on this topic, gravitational physics has established itself as a research focus in north-west Germany. In addition to the Universities of Oldenburg and Bremen, Jacobs University Bremen, the Universities of Hanover and Bielefeld and, as an external partner, the University of Copenhagen are also involved.
"The DFG's decision once again makes it clear how highly the professional quality of physics in Oldenburg and Bremen is regarded," explains Prof Dr Babette Simon, President of the University of Oldenburg. It also shows how fruitful and mutually beneficial the co-operation between the two neighbouring universities is. "Gravitational physics is an exciting field of research with great application potential. Especially in a space location such as the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan region, it is of social interest to pursue gravitational physics at the universities in research and teaching," says Prof Dr Wilfried Müller, Rector of the University of Bremen.
Gravitational physics deals with the geometry of space and time, black holes and wormholes, time travel and the Big Bang, among other things. At second glance, it becomes clear that gravitational physics is also important for our everyday lives. For example, understanding the GPS (Global Positioning System) or the future Galileo system - whose satellites are being built in Bremen - requires the same formalism that is needed to describe black holes. Without taking into account special and general relativistic effects, errors of more than ten kilometres per day would occur, which would be dramatic when landing aircraft.