This year’s Studium Generale is dedicated to the multifaceted theme of ‘water’. The series of open, free lectures kicks off with the event ‘What is water and what makes it so special?’ on 16 October 2018 at 7.00 pm in the Lecture Theatre Centre, Lecture Theatre 1 (KLE 01 EG 005) on the Kleve campus (navigation address: Wiesenstraße 35).
The development of our planet, its diverse forms of life and a vast array of technologies would not have been possible without the existence of water. But what, in fact, is the reason for the extraordinary role that water plays in nature, in technology and, not least, in people’s minds – in art, music, culture and philosophy? This will be explored from various perspectives in this semester’s Studium Generale.
In the first session on 16 October, Prof. Dr Alexander Struck, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the HSRW, will explain the physical and chemical structure of water and how this gives rise to the properties that make water so significant. In particular, he will demonstrate that water’s unique molecular structure gives rise to anomalies in numerous properties – such as its melting and boiling points, heat capacity, density and optical characteristics – when compared with other substances that might be considered similar. Yet water is unique – the exceptions with this substance are actually the rule! Selected examples will be used to illustrate how these distinctive features underpin the mechanism that drives many of the vital processes in our world.
