It was in 1965 that we... actually the two of us was together with some friends... thought we should have a seminar with our co-workers, not with others, and we should go away from the lab because in the lab you have your daily life here and... we should really go to some nice silent place and... since there are so many meetings in summertime we say, 'Let's have a winter seminar and let's discuss there our problems and if we have time left, let's go skiing'. That's how it started. And it was a very little farmer's house in Austria...
[Q] In Austria, in Brand, in Vorarlberg.
Yes, but how many people were we?
[Q] At that time maybe twenty. But the main thing was that those who had never had a good chance to talk with you uninterrupted of telephone or whatever, to talk with you about their scientific problems; be it a diploma, be it a thesis. So it was the ideal frame...
Not only that, also vice versa. I had the time to talk to them and learnt from my co-workers what they have done and what they found out. And I remember that... that was a time, the '60s, where our lab was already flooded with foreign guests, and we talked about the fast reaction work. And so these foreign guests came along and told their colleagues and so after a few times the number of people participating in the winter seminar increased and increased.
[Q] And also the international...
You remember Hans Sachow [sic] came along?
[Q] And it also internationally was growing.
Yes, right.
[Q] So if there was a professor for a sabbatical leave in your institute he would participate, he would contribute with a lecture. So it really spread out like a tree with very many arms, so it became very international.
It almost became an institution, an international institution. After a few years it was fixed seminar, and then people from other universities came. And I think if you ask how many Nobel Prize winners have talked at our winter seminar, I think the number is between thirty and fifty somewhere. And many of them got their Nobel Prize afterwards. So in other words we were able to interest people who are still very active and doing their work.
