Lothar Cremer Prize Winner 2009: Volker Wittstock

On 24.3.2009 Volker Wittstock was awarded the Lothar Cremer Prize*) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Akustik (German Acoustical Society) on the occasion of the annual conference on acoustics in Rotterdam. The DEGA presents this prize once a year for outstanding work by young scientists.

Volker Wittstock qualified for this prize through his extensive investigation of "uncertainty in the determination of acoustic quantities and consequences for their handling". A fundamental accomplishment consisted of refuting and correcting widely accepted assumptions. Such assumptions are, for instance, the preconditions of normal distributions or of the statistical independence of interacting effects. Volker Wittstock, furthermore, started the building acoustic model measuring technique at PTB, with which measurements in constructed buildings could be transferred to the lab, so that, for the first time at all, large series of measurements could be performed "in situ" without failing due to the immense construction costs or the complications of the actual building as has been the case to date. Volker Wittstock, moreover, compiled all the round robin test results available worldwide and, among other things, was able to make quantitative statements about individual uncertainty contributions through forming conditional intersections.

The award winner published 26 scientific papers on this subject alone in a short time. As an expert acknowledged meanwhile throughout the world, he has been assigned the posts of head of the relevant standardization committees at the ISO and DIN. In the revision of the central German standard on sound insulation in buildings, thanks to his work, there will be, for the first time, clear regulations for determining the measurement and prognosis uncertainty of building acoustic quantities and - more important still - how these are to be dealt with.

Volker Wittstock may proudly say that he had two intellectual mentors who enjoy much prestige in acoustics: Prof. Peter Költzsch from Dresden, with whom he completed his diploma thesis on the noises of wind turbines (and who was, by the way, honoured for his life's work by DEGA at the same time!), and Prof. Gerhard Hübner from Berlin, his doctoral advisor on the sound power from circular cylinders in a cross flow.

*) The prize is named after Lothar Cremer (1905-1990), one of the leading 20th century scientists in the field of technical acoustics

Figure 1: Award of the Lothar Cremer Prize in Rotterdam. From the right: Jochen Scheuren (President of the German Acoustical Society), prize winner Volker Wittstock, Werner Scholl (Head of "Applied Acoustics" Department of PTB).

Contact person:

Werner Scholl, FB 1.7, Email: Werner.Scholl@ptb.de