The Nobel Laureate for Physics Professor Klaus von Klitzing appeared as a guest at the Interdisciplinary Scientific Seminar of Wrocław University of Science and Technology,  where he delivered a lecture entitled “A New Kilogram in 2019: The Biggest Revolution in Metrology since the French Revolution.” The lecture started on Tuesday, April 17, at WUST’s Conference Centre. 

Professor Klaus von Klitzing’s lecture concerned a historic change to the International System of Units, also referred to as SI, planned to be implemented in 2019. Currently, of the seven basic units of measurement, i.e. metre, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, candela, and kilogram, only the last one remains defined in terms of a physical object (a platinum-iridium cylinder stored in Sevres). After the change, all units will be based on universal physical constants, i.e. phenomena as opposed to objects. This revolution will be possible thanks to a discovery called the “quantum Hall effect”, made in 1980 by Professor Klaus von Klitzing, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize.  

Prof. Dr. Klaus von Klitzing is heading the department "Low Dimensional Electron Systems" at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.  He was born on 28th June 1943 in Schroda. Klaus von Klitzing studied Physics at the Technical University of Braunschweig. He continued his scientific career at the University of Würzburg, receiving his doctorate in 1972 and his habilitation in 1978. Subsequently, he was appointed professor at the Technical University of Munich (1980-1984), before becoming both Honorarprofessor (part-time prof.) at the University of Stuttgart and Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in 1985.  During his scientific career, Klaus von Klitzing had research stays at the University of Oxford, England, at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Grenoble, France, and at the IBM Research Lab in the Yorktown Heights, USA.  In 1985, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Klaus von Klitzing "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect".