M.K. : Isn´t a retirement a way to show bravery, too? To me the age of 74
years seems like a good time to retire.
Prof. Dr. von Weizsäcker
Actually I find it more
amusing to travel around
the world and try to
change peoples’ behavior by teaching them
good science and physics. Everybody I met so
far was very interested, listening and learning from the things I
was saying, which I find
important. So, my work
is one way of enjoying life. Of course I
do enjoy life at home,
too. As a matter of fact
I have an agreement
with my wife: in summer we both have to
call off all other exter-
nal obligations for four
weeks. In this time we
stay at a lovely lake
resort in Austria and
enjoy our togetherness.
Christmas is another
date, of course, when
I enjoy staying with
the whole family at our
house.
M.K. : A little guessing game: How many kWh (Kilowatt Hour) do you need
to move a ten kilogram object on the top of Mount Everest?
Prof. Dr. von Weizsäcker
Yes, very good! I love
to ask people this question, because the answer
is so astonishing! Every
time I ask my students,
the answer is everything between 300 kWh
and a thousand kWh.
Actually the answer is
just a quarter – which
is absolutely astonishing!
In this difference lies
one of the hugest problems of our society: our
expectation of what a
28
kWh can do is roughly
a thousand times less
from what a kWh can
do in reality.
On this assumption,
which