| Heinrich Hora | |
| Birth Date: | 1 July 1931 |
| Birth Place: | Bodenbach, Czechoslovakia |
| Work Institutions: | University of New South Wales |
| Field: | Theoretical physics |
| Nationality: | German-Australian |
| Alma Mater: | University of Halle-Wittenberg University of Jena |
| Prizes: | Edward-Teller Medal (1991) UNSW Dirac Medal (2001) |
| Spouse: | Rosemarie Hora † 2007 |
Heinrich Hora (born 1931 in Bodenbach, Czechoslovakia) is a German-Australian theoretical physicist who made contributions to solid state physics, optical properties of plasma with relativistic and quantum effects and nonlinear dynamics with applications of lasers for producing nuclear fusion energy. He lives in Sydney where he is an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales and a former vice-president of the Royal Society of New South Wales.
Heinrich Hora was born July 1, 1931, in Bodenbach/Elbe, Germany. He received the degree Diplom-Physiker from the Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, in 1956, and the Dr. Rer Nat. from the Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany. In 1981 the University of New South Wales, Australia, awarded him the D.Sc. degree. [1]
As foundation professor of theoretical physics at the University of New South Wales from 1975 and emeritus from 1992 he established the Department of Theoretical Physics, where a number of students received the university medal, with a record level of publications and where he supervised most of his 25 PhD students. Guest and adjunct professorships include ones at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the universities of Rochester, Bern, Iowa, Giessen, Tokyo, Regensburg, Osaka, Western Sydney and the Weizmann Institute. For seven years he was active in industrial research at Zeiss, IBM, Westinghouse and Siemens. He also was involved with research for 12 years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany and for one year as attache remun. at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or European Council for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland.
He consulted Rainer Erler to the laser movie "Der Verräter" in the TV series "Das Blaue Palais". His taped lecture course at CERN (1991) about laser acceleration of particles contributed to Gerard Mourou's PeV particle acceleration.
His discoveries include the volume mechanism for photo-electric emission, sub-threshold defect generation by electron beams for producing semiconductor junctions with application in solar cells. Prof. Hora's first publication about growth of diamond crystals by physical vapour deposition became an IBM patent in 1964. His first general formula for nuclear energy gain at laser compression and thermal ignition of fusion led to his subsequent discovery of volume ignition (later confirmed by John Archibald Wheeler as "Wheeler modes"). Against established knowledge, he discovered electron acceleration in vacuum by lasers based on nonlinearity.[2] His derivation of the nonlinear (ponderomotive) forces of laser-plasma interaction including dielectric effects in the Maxwellian stress tensor led to the prediction of ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks[3] being confirmed experimentally by Sauerbrey[4] with application to a new laser fusion energy scheme as block ignition of uncompressed fuel[5] resulting in a possible nuclear energy production with less radioactivity than burning coal.[6] [7] He discovered the general mechanism of ponderomotive and relativistic self-focusing. His theory for crossing electron and laser beams within media (Schwarz-Hora effect)[8] [9] led to the discovery of the correspondence principle of electromagnetic interaction and following Nathan Rosen to nonlocality and quantum entangling. Based on the importance of including usually neglected very tiny quantities as the longitudinal field components of laser beams led to the formulation of the nonlinearity principle showing how nonlinear physics is changing from wrong linear physics into correct understanding.[10] [11]
Hora initiated advanced schemes of laser driven fusion energy and became Director of the foundation of SAFE (Society to Advance Fusion Energy) with the president Luella LaMeer Slaner from the traditional billionaires North of Manhattan and George H. Miley as executive director, to push through a law for spending $20 billion for nuclear fusion research finally signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980.[12] This led finally to the scheme of laser pulses of 30 kilojoule energy to produce gigajoule energy from the clean reaction of uncompressed proton-boron fuel[13] resulting in less radioactivity than burning coal.
By 2017 he and associated startup HB11 had committed to hydrogen-boron fusionand in February 2020 announced patents on the technique using a petawatt laser.[14]
Heinrich Hora and his late wife Rosemarie Hora † 2007, née Weiler, have six children, sixteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
D. Sc. (UNSW), Dr. rer. nat. (Jena), Dipl. Physiker (Halle-Wittenberg), FAIP, FInstP (London), FRSN
Ritter-von-Gerstner Medal (1985)Edward-Teller Medal (1991)Dirac Medal of the University of New South Wales (2001)Ernst-Mach Medal (2002)