Horst Wachsmuth – 1933-2008

Our friend and colleague Horst was taken from us by cancer on 8 September.

Horst came to CERN in the early sixties and started to work in the Nuclear Physics Apparatus Division. This division was mainly concerned with the construction of the neutrino beams to be used with the 1.2 m heavy liquid bubble chamber in order to carry out the first ever bubble chamber neutrino experiments. Horst participated in almost all of the bubble chamber neutrino experiments at CERN, including the famous Neutral Current discovery of Gargamelle. Also the important discovery that the neutrino cross-section increases linearly with energy, confirming the Quark Model, could only be made because of the meticulous calculations of the neutrino spectra and fluxes carried out by Horst.

During the last years of his neutrino physics activities he joined the ALEPH collaboration, where he filled many functions from testbeam-coordinator to the integrative function of the CERN team leader. During this time, he started a new activity, which he pursued with energy until his death, that is, analysing cosmic ray events using the ALEPH and other LEP detectors as well as dedicated stations around the ALEPH underground areas. His dedication to the CosmoALEPH experiment encouraged a small team of colleagues to continue working in very close collaboration with him until now, and together the team contributed significantly to the understanding of cosmic rays reaching underground.

Horst’s activities outside physics research earned him the respect of all his colleagues. An early member of the Staff Association, he participated intensely in the 1974 5-yearly-review and worked on the improvement of working conditions in several committees, among them the Standing Advisory Committee, the ‘List of 10’, and as chairman of the Appeals Board at the beginning of the 1980s. At the end of that decade, Horst’s ideas helped to improve the conditions for young scientists and visitors in the technical students committee and several task forces, for example on summer students and the insurance conditions for unpaid visitors.

Alongside his direct work for CERN, Horst was very concerned about ecology and the intelligent use of energy. He went to study human ecology in 1975 and studied energy problems together with colleagues in the EPS in the 1990s, resulting in him organizing the EPS study conference ‘Economy – Energy – Entropy’ at CERN in 1996.

Last but not least, Horst became known to all the CERN population through ‘Picked-Up for You’, which he published for many years and which was eagerly read by many of us to keep abreast of scientific news in all fields.

His devotion to his work and to the good of his colleagues and the environment in every respect won him the warm regard and the admiration of all who knew him. He will be sorely missed.

His colleagues and friends