Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Jakob 1940 - 2025
Dr. Ing. Beate Trost
Dear Carlo,
Your sudden and painful death leaves a gap in our ranks that will not be easily filled. On the other hand, we see from the example of the growing earth that it is precisely these gaps that are the crucial places where new things grow.
You quoted Goethe in one of your last messages to us: “One may perhaps acquire more merit through what one inspires than through what one accomplishes oneself.”
Anyone who followed your work knows that this idea is based on a modesty that is not appropriate. With your knowledge as a mining engineer, you have contributed the effectiveness of electromagnetic fields to the explanation of the formation processes of deposits with such convincing experimental approaches that, as a result of your work, many publications, three dissertations, and several student research projects and theses on this topic were produced at the Technical University of Berlin between 1988 and 2004.
You used scientific methods to accurately interpret band structures in geological formations, which no one had been able to explain convincingly prior to your experiments, and you provided reproducible experimental evidence for your findings. Your research on iron-manganese deposits in resin was so convincing that the expert commission in Clausthal included your newly coined term “self-organization” with main and secondary keywords in the 1999 edition of the German Language Dictionary of Mineral Deposits.
Hilgenberg's explanations of tectonic processes through earth expansion, together with your explanations of structure-forming processes through self-organization under the influence of electromagnetic fields, illustrate how important the interaction between generations of researchers at the TU Berlin's Department of Mineral Deposits was.
It was you who commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg, who died in Berlin in 1976, in 2001:
http://www.tu-berlin.de/presse/tui/01mai/hilgenb.htm
And you honored Hilgenberg with the publication: Giancarlo Scalera & Karl-Heinz Jacob (eds.): Why expanding earth? A book in honor of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg. Proceedings of the 3rd Lautenthaler Montanistisches Colloquium held in Lautenthal, Mining Industry Museum, on May 26, 2001. From 1972 to 2004, you taught as a professor of deposit research and raw materials science at the Technical University of Berlin, making you the person who still had direct contact with Hilgenberg.
As your friends, we are convinced that you have not only inspired others, but also achieved great things yourself, as you have advanced the theory of Earth expansion through internationally recognized lectures, teaching and research work, and extraordinary personal commitment. In a 2014 television report for ARTE, you demonstrated the significance that Earth expansion still had in Germany in the 1960s, when Prof. Heinz Haber—also on television—presented experiments on the expanding Earth to the public. Carlo, we are proud to have known you and will carry your insights into the future, just as you did for Ott-Christoph Hilgenberg!
Dr. Ing. Beate Trost
Dear Carlo,
Your sudden and painful death leaves a gap in our ranks that will not be easily filled. On the other hand, we see from the example of the growing earth that it is precisely these gaps that are the crucial places where new things grow.
You quoted Goethe in one of your last messages to us: “One may perhaps acquire more merit through what one inspires than through what one accomplishes oneself.”
Anyone who followed your work knows that this idea is based on a modesty that is not appropriate. With your knowledge as a mining engineer, you have contributed the effectiveness of electromagnetic fields to the explanation of the formation processes of deposits with such convincing experimental approaches that, as a result of your work, many publications, three dissertations, and several student research projects and theses on this topic were produced at the Technical University of Berlin between 1988 and 2004.
You used scientific methods to accurately interpret band structures in geological formations, which no one had been able to explain convincingly prior to your experiments, and you provided reproducible experimental evidence for your findings. Your research on iron-manganese deposits in resin was so convincing that the expert commission in Clausthal included your newly coined term “self-organization” with main and secondary keywords in the 1999 edition of the German Language Dictionary of Mineral Deposits.
Hilgenberg's explanations of tectonic processes through earth expansion, together with your explanations of structure-forming processes through self-organization under the influence of electromagnetic fields, illustrate how important the interaction between generations of researchers at the TU Berlin's Department of Mineral Deposits was.
It was you who commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg, who died in Berlin in 1976, in 2001:
http://www.tu-berlin.de/presse/tui/01mai/hilgenb.htm
And you honored Hilgenberg with the publication: Giancarlo Scalera & Karl-Heinz Jacob (eds.): Why expanding earth? A book in honor of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg. Proceedings of the 3rd Lautenthaler Montanistisches Colloquium held in Lautenthal, Mining Industry Museum, on May 26, 2001. From 1972 to 2004, you taught as a professor of deposit research and raw materials science at the Technical University of Berlin, making you the person who still had direct contact with Hilgenberg.
As your friends, we are convinced that you have not only inspired others, but also achieved great things yourself, as you have advanced the theory of Earth expansion through internationally recognized lectures, teaching and research work, and extraordinary personal commitment. In a 2014 television report for ARTE, you demonstrated the significance that Earth expansion still had in Germany in the 1960s, when Prof. Heinz Haber—also on television—presented experiments on the expanding Earth to the public. Carlo, we are proud to have known you and will carry your insights into the future, just as you did for Ott-Christoph Hilgenberg!
