I think the solo playing, the decision to start playing solo, came out of having discovered what...
Weston Anderson was on his way to invent Fourier transform spectroscopy in order to improve the sensitivity of NMR by parallel data acquisition.
We developed at that time also stochastic resonance as an alternative to pulse FT spectroscopy employing binary pseudo-random noise sequences for broadband excitation, correlating input and output...
Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
The goal set by Hans Primas was the usage of random noise for the excitation of nuclear magnetic resonance, following the famous concepts of Norbert Wiener for the stochastic testing of non-linear...
Soon, I knew that I would become a chemist, rather than a composer.
Signal-to-noise ratio calculations and optimizations were daily routine as NMR suffers from a disappointingly low sensitivity that severely limits its applications.
Playing the violoncello brought me into numerous chamber and church music ensembles, and stimulated my interest in musical composition that I tried extensively while in high school.
On the theoretical side, I was concerned with stochastic resonance.
My own work dealt with the construction of high sensitivity radio frequency preamplifiers and in particular high sensitivity probe assemblies, initially for a 25 MHz, later for a 75 MHz proton...
My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city.
Much of his and also my time was spent on designing and building advanced electronic equipment for improved NMR spectrometers.
Invaluable art collections and a small but first rank symphony orchestra carry the fame of Winterthur far across the borders of Switzerland.
In recent years, more and more of my time has become absorbed by administrative work for the research council of ETH-Z of which I am presently the president.
In parallel, we developed the theoretical background for the experiments we had in mind as well as for the optimum performance of the instruments.
I wanted to understand the secrets behind my chemical experiments and behind the processes in nature.
I thus decided to leave the university forever and tried to find an industrial job in the United States.
I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.
I had the great luck to grow up, together with two sisters, in a town that combined in a unique way artistic and industrious activities.
I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house,...
I am not surprised that they show no intention to follow in my footsteps, although if I had a second chance myself, I would certainly try to repeat my present career.