Werner Gruber


Werner Gruber is an Austrian Physicist, Author, Professor, Cabaretist, Diskudant and well known from ORF and as a member of the Socialdemocratic Party Austria.

Biography

Gruber grew up in Ansfelden, Upper Austria and graduated in 1999 with a degree in physics from the University of Vienna. He then worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna. Since February 2013 Gruber manages the astronomical institutions of the Adult Education centers in Vienna - the Planetarium Wien, the Kuffner Observatory and the Urania Observatory. He teaches the introduction to physics at the Medical Faculty of the Sigmund Freud University Vienna, and at the Institute of Experimental Physic at the University of Vienna.
After performing on September 26, 2015, Gruber suffered a cardiac arrest, which he survived thanks to a prompt cardiac massage by his colleague Puntigam and a rapid successor rescue chain. He was then implanted with a pacemaker with a defibrillator and an internet connection. To be a "Sudden Death with Brain" he described in October 2015 as a great luck. Gruber had previously tried to reduce excess weight in order to reduce the resulting health risks. After the operative training of a Gastric bypass surgery, he has lost 50 kg until November 2015.
Gruber is also an active member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria.

Popular scientific work

Gruber became known through popular scientific treatment of everyday physics in adult education courses in Vienna, in columns and on television appearances. With the theoretical physicist Heinz Oberhummer and the cabaret artist Martin Puntigam, he designed and presented the science cabaret Science Busters at the Rabenhof Theater in Vienna. In these events, science was presented in an entertaining way. The Science Busters also presented in this lineup a weekly radio column on the youth radio station FM4 of the ORF. In February 2016 Gruber announced to leave the Science Busters because of the death of Heinz Oberhummer.
In 2012, Gruber was awarded the Vienna Prize for Public Education. 2013, this book Gedankenlesen durch Schneckenstreicheln was awarded as Knowledge Book of the Year.
Beyond the German-speaking countries was known in early 2010 its demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the "nude scanners", which are to be introduced in the security control at airports, on ZDF. In 2015, Gruber gave an interview to the Austrian newspaper Kurier, where he said that human impact played a formative rol on climate change.
Together with Heinz Oberhummer, Gruber act as a Klingon in two promotional videos from the Volkshochschule Wien on January 2015. In both videos Klingon was spoken to illustrate the diversity of the VHS language offering.

Publications (Selection)