Freiburger Kippa-Tag

©Jüdische Gemeinde Freiburg

Yesterday Freiburg's Jewish Community organized its first Day of the Kippah.

Irina Katz addressing the crowd assembled in front of the New Synagogue

Irina Katz, chairwoman of Freiburg's Jewish community, even claimed that it was the first Kippa-Tag in Baden-Württemberg.

Facing Freiburg's New Synagogue, the assembled people
listen to Felix Rottenberger and Irina Katz

We, the participants, protested against a resurgence of antisemitism in Germany. Antisemitism gets stronger in other European countries too. In France, thousands of Jews have already left the country for Israel.

Nip it in the bud! In Germany, people wearing the kippah in the street were verbally aggressed, spat at, and sometimes physically attacked. Walking from Freiburg's New Synagogue to the Square of the Old Synagogue, we wore the kippah as a symbol of tolerance against xenophobia and exclusion.

In front of the memorial of the Old Synagogue, Irina Katz is at the microphone; behind are
the orators, Mayor Martin Horn, and the City Counselors Simon Waldenspuhl and Monika Stein.

Antisemitism has developed into a complex conglomerate of old Christian sentiments against the Jews as formulated by the Church Fathers - later" modernized" by Martin Luther - mixed with the rejection of the Israeli settlement policy in Palestine.

In our faraway societies, sympathy for Israel's struggle for survival clashes with the rejection of the Palestinian population's treatment by the Jewish State. This dilemma frequently leads to a new form of antisemitism, nourished in Germany primarily by our fellow Islamic citizens.

At the Square of the Old Synagogue, a listening crowd

At the rally at the Square of the Old Synagogue, City Counselor Simon Waldenspuhl demanded that Freiburg cut its partnership with the Iranian city of Isfahan. While a murmur passed through the audience, Red Baron and another guy spontaneously shouted Nein.

Later I discussed this with the orator and accused him of hypocrisy. Although having comprehensively spoken against exclusion, he excluded the citizens of Isfahan. Freiburg has always understood its sisterships as a vehicle for making personal contacts and getting to know our partner cities' people but never as a political connection.

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5G

Shaping Freiburg Digitally! was the title of a workshop last November. The officials asked their citizens to help describe and subsequently determine Freiburg's digital future, a laudable undertaking. Here are the guiding principles ...

... and here were the topics to be discussed at the workshop in groups:

Red Baron went to the workshop and attended the working group on education, science, and culture, only to suffer from a massive presence of high school teachers asking for faster Internet and demanding free tablets for their schools.

The official chairpersons of the working groups had to draft proposals for the city council's attention. These papers were to be discussed and refined at a later date.

So in July of this year, during a meeting called "Check-Up," printed copies of the drafts were pinned to the wall and studied by the persons present. We were asked to garnish the papers with colored stickers annotating the content and style of the documents.

Once all comments had been glued to our draft on education, science, and culture, the discussion started. This turned out to be tedious for one lady who kept harping on the harmful biological effects of the high frequencies of the new 5G mobile standard.

My knowledge so far was that of a mere thermal effect on human tissue. I was seconded in my view by another physicist present. The lady continued to pest, eventually admitting that she was a homeopath. At that point, I was carried away, remarking, "That explains everything." Back home, I decided to give the 5th Generation a closer look.

According to experts on the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation, radio waves become "safer" at higher frequencies and therefore are not more dangerous than those of lower frequencies. Notabene, this is not true for extremely high-frequency radiation, as there are UV, X-, or gamma rays. They indeed interact differently with the human body and pose a health risk.

The skin acts as a barrier for radio waves in the 5G frequency band, shielding the internal organs from exposure, including the brain. "This kind of radiation doesn't penetrate," says Christopher M. Collins, professor of radiology at New York University, who studies the effect of high-frequency electromagnetic waves on humans.

This is why in cities, a 5G service requires the placement of many antenna towers because walls, buildings, rain, leaves, and other objects will block the high-frequency signals. The human skin absorbs 5G signals delivering thermal energy to the surrounding tissue.

Imagine all those people panicked by angst, throwing their mobile phones away
(Found on Facebook).

However, the adversaries of 5G believe in the damaging effects of any electromagnetic fields on cell membranes, on mitochondria - the energy suppliers of cells - and even on the DNA of body cells resulting in mutations, a weakened immune system, and ultimately an increased risk of cancer.

The City of Freiburg placed us in immediate danger
by offering free WiFi4Fr in the conference room.

The authorities, the Ministry of Health in Stuttgart and the Ministry of Environment in Berlin, both led by Green ministers, are waving their hands. "There are no health-relevant effects below the current limits," assures the Ministry of Health in Stuttgart.

Berlin's Ministry of Environment confirms that according to the present state of knowledge, there is no scientifically loadable reference to the endangerment of humans, animals, and plants by high-frequency electromagnetic fields below the official limits.

The editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal Reviews on Environmental Health, Dr. Carpenter, wrote in 2013, "The rapid increase in the use of cellphones increases the risk of cancer, male infertility, and neurobehavioral abnormalities." However, mainstream scientists continue to see no evidence of harm from cellphone radio waves so far.

"If phones are linked to cancer, we'd expect to see a marked uptick," David Robert Grimes, a cancer researcher at the University of Oxford, recently wrote in The Guardian. "Yet we do not."

However, Dr. Carpenter defended his high-frequency view. "You have all this evidence that cellphone radiation penetrates the brain," he said. Still, then he conceded after some discussion that the increasingly high frequencies of 5G could, in fact, have a difficult time entering the human body and acknowledged, "maybe it's not that big a deal."

In Germany, the tone has become rougher concerning the health effects of 5G frequencies. Scientists are declared "counterfeiters" and "liars," politicians "ignorant," or "corporate lackeys."

Once again, German angst is the driving force behind such tantrums, as the head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques (IPM) in Freiburg, Karsten Buse, suspects. He calls the uproar the Nocebo effect, the opposite of the placebo effect, "I'm afraid it's hurting me - so it's hurting me" and continues, "The word radiation alone reminds people of X-rays or irradiation by radioactive materials."

Buse is an expert in the field. At the beginning of his academic career, he dealt with people's fear of electrosmog when they meant high-voltage lines or post office transmitter masts. "Angst is a health burden; you have to take it seriously," Buse concedes. But he also says, "I regard the fear that is spread as completely exaggerated. Many millions of mobile phone users - some already for a long time - undergo a daily self-experiment using their mobile phones; this should have been reflected epidemiologically, but it hasn't, especially not in the cancer registry. Non-ionizing radiation cannot alter individual atoms or molecules, destroy genetic material, or cause cancer."

The critics, however, want a moratorium, a halt to 5G expansion until further studies bring clarity. An Action Alliance, "Freiburg 5G-free," intends to achieve this through a residents' meeting for Freiburg.

Martin Horn only slightly looking enthusiastic (©BZ).

Here members of the Action Alliance present Mayor Martin Horn a list of signatures requesting a residents' meeting where the endangerment of the population by mobile radio waves, especially in connection with 5G, should be discussed. They had to collect 2500 signatures and easily reached the quorum: 3875 names are on their list. According to the city administration, the residents' meeting will take place on 13 November.

Elsewhere concerned citizens have already achieved a moratorium, e.g., in the canton of Geneva. In April, Belgians stopped a 5G pilot project for the EU capital Brussels.

Regarding the health effects of cell phones, Red Baron sees those coming up in a couple of years in future generations. Young mothers pushing their strollers with one hand while texting with the other, teens glued to the screens watching the latest music video, younger children playing on their mobile phones shoot-em-up games, they all bend their necks excessively.

Medical students become orthopaedists! A job with an assured future.

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Freiburg Splinters

On June 10, I introduced splinters, bits, and pieces of information that may interest my readers but do not justify writing a blog. This time, the splinters from Freiburg will interest my friends from our sister city, Madison.

The Fish Ladder

On Monday, September 16, on my way to the reception for the freshly arrived American students of the Academic Year 2019/2020 in Freiburg (AYF), I passed the river Dreisam on Schwabentorbrücke admiring the new fish ladder.
*Organized annually by the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft (FMG) at the Greiffenegg-Schlössle

The old fish ladder made from wood had become rotten, possibly accelerated by the frequent low water levels of the Dreisam laying bare parts of the wood (CC).
*Oakwood permanently kept underwater may be conserved for centuries.

The new fish ladder is made from stones fixed with concrete. Nobody expected it to become an attraction. Despite the late hour, people were bathing in the cold waters of the Dreisam, leaving little room for fish to jump. OK, there is no high cotton in Freiburg, and our corn only grows low due to the lack of rain (CC).

Turning Moats into Playgrounds

Later I passed a sort of valley, a vestige of a moat. Military architect Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban had it dug when fortifying Fribourg en Brisgau, la Ville de Sa Majesté.

From 1677 to 1697, Freiburg was a French city under the rule of King Louis XIV, presenting an essential link in France's northern belt of fortifications.

The allusion to Turning Moats into Playgrounds would be appropriate when looking at today's photo.

Not much is left of Vauban's masterpiece. Here is the vestige of a tower covered partly by soil.


Stone Fall

©BZ

End of August, during the night, parts of the sill of the former Augustiner Church, now the core of Freiburg's Augustiner Museum, fell on the sidewalk. Luckily nobody was hurt.

When Red Baron passed during the day, the whole sidewalk was fenced off. Well, it's the glue again! Remember my blogs about the new university library? This time it was not just a tiny metal lamella but stones where the most massive part weighed 15 kg.

Nowadays, glues are used everywhere. However, in construction and building work, there should be a CAVEAT. When thermal movements are involved, the glue layers become brittle, and gravity takes over.

Those still hot days in Freiburg are now followed by cooler nights, so the differences in daily temperatures are more significant (CC). In the case of the glued sill, thermal dilatation during the day is followed by thermal shrinking during the night stressing the glue. By the way, those lamellae at the windows of the university library are now riveted.

Warming Stripes for GLOBE

Last Friday, Red Baron was on the train for his annual class reunion in a suburb of Hamburg.

Remember the pot of coffee and Butterkuchen served on the ICE (Intercity Express)? Unfortunately, the quality of the butter cake has degraded over the years. This time I just had a pot of coffee and a hearty bite of a Laugencroissant I had bought at the Freiburg station. The dictionary translates Laugencroissant as a delicate triangular croissant pastry with a slightly salty crust.

           Greta started it all (©Facebook)

Because of my train ride, I missed the Fridays for Future demonstrations both in Freiburg and the Hanseatic city. Still, I am much concerned when thinking of my grandchildren. By placing CC in the text, I reminded you that we have started to see the effects of climate change in our everyday life here in Freiburg.

More than 20,000? (©dpa)

While I was on the train, Freiburg saw its largest crowd in history. More than 20,000, primarily young people, demonstrated at the Square of the Old Synagogue for their future in a liveable climate.

On Facebook: Freiburg's mayor was among the crowd (©Fionn Große)

You may have already seen the "Warming Stripes for GLOBE from 1850-2018".

©BZ

Menetekel is not written on the wall but painted on a streetcar (©BZ)

Freiburg's public transport company now reminds riders of their streetcars that it is nearly too late to stop climate change. They reproduced the Warming Stripes on one of their trams, showing the dramatic rise in temperatures during our recent summers.

Meanwhile, our coalition government had entered into its longtime planned discussions at the chancellery in Berlin on what they called a climate package for Germany.

After 19 (!) hours of deliberations, parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus* as the Latin poet Horace once wrote. Worn out, Angela Merkel went in front of the press and presented the compromise reached between the Christian and the Social Democrats.
*The mountain went into labor and delivered a ridiculous mouse, Horace (65 - 8 v.Chr.), Ars Poetica, Verse 139

The timid measures proposed are too small; they come too late.

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Stamps

Like any other national postal service, the Deutsche Post issues commemorative stamps.

German Constitutions

On 14 August 2019, the German Post released a stamp on the 100th anniversary of the Weimarer Verfassung (Weimar Constitution). The text of Article 1 is printed on the stamp:

The German Reich is a republic. The people are vested with the authority of the state.

This was a complete break from the monarchy and an assault on the obedient mentality of the German people. It must have been too much too soon, as the dictatorial takeover by the Nazis in 1933 proved.

The Weimar Constitution replaced the constitution of the Second Reich that was formed by Bismarck following the defeat of the Erzfeind (archenemy) France. The document's main aim was the unity of the German tribes, so the first article reads very technically:

§ 1: In place of the constitution of the German Confederation agreed between the North German Confederation and the Grand Duchies of Baden and Hesse, as well as the treaties of 23 and 25 November 1870, concluded with the kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg concerning accession to this constitution, the attached constitutional final draft for the German Reich shall take the place of the constitution of the German Confederation agreed between the North German Confederation and the Grand Duchies of Baden and Hesse.

There is no mention in the whole text about human rights.

When reading the first article of the Paulskirchenverfassung (Frankfurt Constitution) of 1849, you may get the same impression:

§ 1: The German Reich shall consist of the territory of the former German Federation*.
*formed in 1815 following the Restoration after the Napoleon Wars.

Be not mistaken. Those sitting together in Frankfurt's Paulskirche and debating had the French declaration of human rights in their brains and hearts. Starting with article 138, we read:

§138.1: The freedom of a person is inviolable.

In 1999 the German Postal Service issued a stamp, 50 Jahre Grundgesetz commemorating the German constitution of 1949, which the founding fathers and mothers meeting in Bonn humbly called the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

As a result of the crimes against humanity of the Nazi regime, the first paragraph of the Grundgesetz reads:

Article 1: Human dignity is inviolable. All state authorities must respect and protect it.

A Green Guy

Another special stamp this year commemorates the great Alexander von Humboldt. His scientific achievements are extraordinary and well-known, but I did not know that he also had other thoughts.

As a result of his observations during his extended travel at the beginning of the 19th century, he wrote," There is no doubt that slavery is the greatest evil of all that has tormented mankind."

In 1803 Alexander von Humboldt noticed that the irrigation system of the City of Mexico had dried up the nearby valleys and laconically wrote in his diary, "Man rapes nature."

This observation made him one of the first Greens when later he specified more clearly his doomsday scenario, "Man has three ways of destroying nature: By deforestation, artificial irrigation and gaseous fumes."

We experience the burning of the rainforest, and fights for clean water resources are flaring up, but how did this guy know about the carbon dioxide issue in our times when CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels around 1800 were still negligible?

Alexander must have been a gifted speaker too when Goethe judged him, "In eight days you can't read from books what he's telling you in one hour."

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Back to My Roots

My faithful readers will know I spent most of my professional life at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.

Alumni welcome 2019

You may also have read that I helped launch the union of CERN alumni last year, participating in its baptismal celebration called First Collision. In fact, in the life of a particle collider, the most exciting moment is when physicists observe the first collisions.

©CERN

It was natural and nearly compulsory that I volunteered when the alumni were asked to help with the CERN Open Days 2019.

After being assured of my stay, I took the train from Freiburg to Geneva. When I stepped onto streetcar number 18, I was excited because all trams and buses flew CERN flags and those of the Open Days.

The following morning at my hostel. View of the Alps and Mont Blanc

Once I checked in, I went to see the responsible lady for the Open Days, asking whether my affiliation may be changed.

The LHC is shut down until 2021 for an upgrade to reach its final energy of 14 TeV.

LHC superconducting magnet string underground.
You barely see the curvature of the ring tunnel.

Initially, I was scheduled to help channel visitors in an underground accelerator pit. This was too much for an octogenarian. Besides, my presence would be more useful in helping the people of my former group explain the mysteries of ionizing radiation. Rachel also helped me establish a CERN computing account. This was more complicated - safety oblige - than 20 years ago.

Then, I started exploring my former place of work.

A development I lived through. I frequently had coffee with Robert Cailliau.

I only knew that Werner Heisenberg was a table tennis champion.

A unique coffee only found in the Geneva region, the renversé

Later, I was busy registering correctly (CERN Badge) and getting my gear for the Open Days (T-shirt and name badge), easily surpassing my target, the number of daily walking steps.

In the evening, there was a reception for the alumni helping with the Open Days
 at the tennis club "Le Smash." Note the white cylinder hanging from the wall:
An RP radiation monitor (see text below)

The Saturday morning Radiation Protection crew waiting for visitors.
In front right: one of the radiation measuring instruments on display (©RP CERN).

While we were waiting at our stand at 9:18 a.m. for our first customers,
there was already a waiting time of two hours to visit the ATLAS experimental area.

Unfortunately, this was not the case when fulfilling my duty at the Radiation Protection Stand during the Open Days. There, I mostly stood to explain to visitors in my languages what natural radioactivity is and that eating a banana increases your personal radiation dose by 0,1 μSv*. This is due to the high potassium content of the fruit containing the naturally present radioactive nuclide ⁴⁰K.
*Sievert (Sv) is the SI unit when measuring radiation. This is a big unit, so in radiation protection, doses are expressed in mSv, μSv, or even nSv

Bananas are good for your health.

It was new to many visitors that they are also a natural source of ionizing radiation. Two people cuddling up for a night irradiate each other mutually with a dose of 0,05 μSv, i.e., eating half a banana.

Being on a plane from Europe to the States exposes the occasional passenger to a dose of 50 μSv due to cosmic rays. Doses to flying staff accumulate, so pilots and cabin crews are professionally exposed workers. While at CERN, people working in radioactive areas or with radiation sources wear dosemeters to determine their personal radiation doses; those to flying staff are evaluated by calculation. In fact, exposure to cosmic rays is well-known for the routes planes take routinely.

Lying in the sand

The natural exposure rate due to terrestrial and cosmic radiation in the Geneva region is about 70 nSv/h, but there are regions in the world where exposure to terrestrial radiation is higher. In my time at CERN, the sands from the beaches in Kerala, India, were notorious as natural radiation sources. At the exhibition, we had worse. The sand from a beach at Guarapari, Brazil, gave a dose rate of 230 nSv/h. This is due to a high concentration of natural Thorium. They operate Thorium mines in Brazil. Would Einstein go to Guarapari Beach? Definitely.

On the evening of the first Open Day

The RP exhibition focused on sources of natural radiation, explaining simultaneously that professional exposures and radiation doses from CERN activities to the population living on and around its sites are negligible; CERN's "activities" only contribute infinitesimally to doses from natural sources.

All these demonstrations were very popular with our visitors and, in most cases, extremely useful in dissipating their underlying angst.

The Sunday afternoon crew (©RP CERN)

The operation of a high-energy accelerator produces radiation. Radiation has become a political issue, and the CERN management has understood. So I was only mildly astonished to learn that despite restrictions on personnel at CERN, seventy people are presently working in RP-Group, while when I retired, we had a staff of about fifty.

At the end of those highly successful Open Days at CERN, I was tired but simultaneously satisfied, having helped my former colleagues sell our trade to the visiting public.

Drinking my well-deserved craft beer
in the evening sun at the terrasse of the CERN restaurant.

Full moon: Goodnight and goodbye, CERN

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