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[Closed] Scientist Heinz Wolff dies, aged 89....
Sad day, loved the great egg race and kind of got me interested in engineering.... 😥
That is sad...I studied at Brunel and used to regularly see him walking round campus, with his proper mad scientist appearance!
I saw him there a couple of years ago;my Dad also did some work with him many years back.
The person I was meeting with said he was now getting around in a motorised scooter, but in true Heinz Wolff style, the power source was out of date fire extinguishers that he was having recompressed by the science dept.
Mad as, but we need mad scientists.
It’s the mad scientists that invent the stuff we now use everyday. What an awesome character!
Sad news, really enjoyed his shows.
A man who truly realised that science requires engagement and communication. So compelling.
He was one of my Fathers friends..
Sad News, I learned a lot from him BITD.
😐
had the pleasure of meeting him back in the mid nineties, We were given an extensive guided tour of his labs at Brunel Uni. He/ the lab were working on practical simple solutions for everyday problems encountered by the disabled.... stuff like the one handed cutting board. Lovely chap but sorry to disappoint you but not quite the "mad professor" in reality 🙂 Just a very focused and dedicated scientist.
Sad news. His TV shows, along with James Burke's and Technical Lego are why I became an engineer.
Probably shouldn't be thanking him actually...
🙁
Sad indeed, I loved The Great Egg Race.
Perhaps there should be a competition to design a suitably bonkers way to lay him to rest?
Well remembered for the mad scientist “great egg race” stuff but a very well respected scientist. Coined the term Bioengineering in the ‘50’s. Also a great speaker (heard him at an Oxford college a few years ago).
Klunk, I had the pleasure of hearing him lecture on design and adaptations for independent living back in the 90s. It was all so simple and common sense, but he really did change lives with his ideas. Brilliant.
Perhaps there should be a competition to design a suitably bonkers way to lay him to rest?
A friend of mine just posted this on FB:
[i]"One of my childhood heroes 🙁 I hope he has a funeral where a robot made of drinking straws picks up the coffin and puts it on to a modified lawnmower which uses a system of pulleys to pass it along to..."[/i]
He brightened up a lot of lifes I feel and encouraged many to enter engineering or science type jobs or careers.
Good innings too.
Hats off to Heinz
Just been explaining to my science boffin son what TGER was all about. He wants is back on telly, he wants to win.
The Great Egg race was probabyl what started me on an Engineering Path!
I thought HW was terrific, even after, as a guest judge in the early 1990's he disqualified my team from our schools engineering competition for "pushing the limits of the rules" a bit too far....
(A motorsports career was perhaps inevitable after that 😉 )
When I was a kid, my dad did a rip-off Great Egg Race for his students - I don’t know if it was approved or not, but I’ve still got a Great Egg Raise ceremonial spatula somehwere...