PARTICLE PHYSICS

He is a DESY veteran in the best sense of the word: particle physicist, former research director and recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Paul Söding, turns 90. He was closely associated with DESY throughout his scientific life and left his mark on the research center over decades.

"Paul Söding gave a lot to DESY and rendered outstanding services to the research center in many ways," says DESY Director Helmut Dosch. "Without him, DESY would not be where it is today; we are very grateful to him for that. I congratulate Paul Söding very warmly on his 90th birthday and wish him all the best personally, and us that he will be available to us in an advisory capacity for a long time to come."

Paul Söding was one of the first graduate students of DESY founder Willibald Jentschke. After various research stays, he became a senior scientist at DESY in 1969 and also a professor at the University of Hamburg in 1975. He helped set up the TASSO experiment at the brand-new PETRA storage ring, where the first detection of gluons, the natural basic glue that holds quarks and protons together, was achieved in 1979. Then, in 1982, Söding was appointed DESY research director (there was only one at the time) and was instrumental in steering the construction of the HERA accelerator and its H1 and ZEUS experiments.

After German reunification, Paul Söding found his next heart's desire at DESY: After a very positive review of the Institute for High Energy Physics of the GDR, the German Science Council recommended that the institute, located in Zeuthen, Brandenburg, be merged with DESY. Söding had taken a leave of absence from his duties on the DESY Directorate shortly before in order to devote more time to research himself. Now, however, he concentrated completely on the merger of these two research centers. As head of the Zeuthen site, he displayed not only a high degree of foresight and human and scientific leadership, but also a pronounced sensitivity and empathy for the concerns of the people. Until his retirement in 1998, he ensured that the two DESYs were brought together on an equal footing and initiated a realignment of the scientific profile of the new site.

In 2001, Paul Söding was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to particle physics and in bringing together science, scientists in East and West. And even after his retirement, Söding continued to be involved with his DESY: Together with ex-director Erich Lohrmann, he wrote the book "Von schnellen Teilchen und hellem Licht" (Of Fast Particles and Bright Light), in which one can relive the DESY story.