Wolfgang Götze (born 11 July 1937 – 20 October 2021) was a German theoretical physicist. He began his physics education at

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

and the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

, after which he obtained his doctorate at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

in 1963. After temporary positions at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

and the

Steklov Institute of Mathematics Steklov Institute of Mathematics or Steklov Mathematical Institute (russian: Математический институт имени В.А.Стеклова) is a premier research institute based in Moscow, specialized in mathematics, and a part ...

, in 1970 Götze accepted a chair for theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich. There he did research on various problems of condensed matter physics as well as fluid dynamics. He is especially well-known for his development of a mode-coupling theory that describes the microscopic dynamics of

viscous liquid In condensed matter physics and physical chemistry, the terms viscous liquid, supercooled liquid, and glassforming liquid are often used interchangeably to designate liquids that are at the same time highly viscous (see Viscosity of amorphous mate ...

s. When the theory was introduced in the 1980s, it was originally supposed to describe the

glass transition The glass–liquid transition, or glass transition, is the gradual and reversible transition in amorphous materials (or in amorphous regions within semicrystalline materials) from a hard and relatively brittle "glassy" state into a viscous or rubb ...

. While it provides an incomplete description there, it soon became clear that the theory rather applies to liquids of moderate to low viscosity. In particular, it has been used to accurately model the behavior of supercooled fluids, where the theory has been thoroughly confirmed by experiments and simulations. After his retirement in 2004 he was nominated TUM Emeritus of Excellence. For his contributions to the theory of condensed matter, especially to mode-coupling theory, Götze received in 2006 the

Max Planck Medal The Max Planck medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions, ...

of the Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. In addition, for this theory as well as his whole research work, he won in 2006 the

Tomassoni award Tomassoni awards was the overarching name of two prizes for outstanding achievements in physics, the Premio Felice Pietro Chisesi e Caterina Tomassoni and the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi. The two prizes were awarded every one ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gotze, Wolfgang 1937 births Living people People from Fürstenwalde People from the Province of Brandenburg 20th-century German physicists Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich Winners of the Max Planck Medal