NRW Minister Ina Brandes visits the ELSA electron accelerator

Distinguished visitor from Düsseldorf - Ministerin Ina Brandes in the ELSA tunnel © Photo: Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, has visited the electron accelerator "ELSA" on the Poppelsdorf campus of the University of Bonn. The large-scale device has been reliably delivering the latest findings for research into the building blocks of matter for over three decades. It is part of a 70-year tradition of Nobel Prize-winning accelerator research at the University of Bonn. Rector Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch, together with the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Walter Witke, welcomed the distinguished visitor from Düsseldorf. The meeting was also attended by the heads of the universities that work closely with Bonn, the Rector of TU Dortmund University, Manfred Bayer, and the Rector of the University of Siegen, Stefanie Reese. Accelerator research has a 70-year tradition in Bonn - about as long as the European research center CERN, which was founded in 1954. The most prominent figure in this field was the Bonn physicist Wolfgang Paul, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989 for his work on the ion trap.