Biography:Rainer Walter Kühne

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Short description: German theoretical physicist


Rainer Walter Kühne (born 23 May 1970) is a German theoretical physicist known for his work on Plato's Atlantis.

Education and early life

Rainer Walter Kühne was born in 1970 in Braunschweig, Germany. He got his diploma in physics from the University of Bonn in 1995 and the Dr. rer. nat. in 2001 from the University of Dortmund.

Research

Kühne worked on the subjects of cold fusion, cosmology, gravitation physics, and quantum field theory.[1] His dissertation "Thermodynamics of Heisenberg Chains Coupled to Phonons" was on the subject of thermodynamics.[2]

Kühne became widely known for his work on Plato's Atlantis. Kühne argued that the Atlantis story is philosophical fiction which includes historical elements. These historical elements include the Iron Age city of Tartessos and the war of the Bronze Age Sea Peoples.[3] Kühne's theory is mainly based on the works of Adolf Schulten and Spyridon Marinatos.

A number of mass media reported on Kühne's Atlantis work. These include National Geographic,[4] New Scientist,[5] and BBC.[6]

In 2006 and 2009 two archaeological and geological expeditions were performed in the Spanish Donana National Park in order to test Kühne's Atlantis-Tartessos theory. These expeditions were headed by archaeologist Sebastian Celestino Perez and historian Richard Freund. The geological results were published in three peer-reviewed journal papers.[7][8][9] The archaeological results were published in Richard Freund's book "Digging through History".[10] The National Geographic documentary "Finding Atlantis" (March 2011) reported about the 2009 expedition.

Main results of the two expeditions include evidence of four tsunamis between 2100 BC and 200 BC, numerous pottery sherds and geophysical evidence of an archaeological site.

References

  1. [1] Kühne's profile page at ResearchGate
  2. [2] [3] Kühne's PhD thesis (2001)
  3. [4] Kühne: "A Location for Atlantis?", Antiquity 78, no. 300 (2004)
  4. National Geographic (2004): Atlantis "Evidence" Found in Spain and Ireland [5]
  5. New Scientist (2009): Atlantis
  6. BBC (2004): Satellite images 'show Atlantis'
  7. Antonio Rodriguez-Ramirez et al.: "The role of neo-tectonics in the sedimentary infilling and geomorphological evolution of the Guadalquivir estuary (Gulf of Cadiz, SW Spain) during the Holocene", Geomorphology 219 (2014) pp. 126-140. [6]
  8. Antonio Rodriguez et al.: "Atlantic extreme wave events during the last four millennia in the Guadalquivir estuary, SW Spain" Quaternary Research 83 (2015) pp. 24-40. [7]
  9. Gonzalo Jimenez-Moreno et al.: "Impact of late-Holocene aridification trend, climate variability and geodynamic control on the environment from a coastal area in SW Spain" The Holocene 25 (2015) pp. 607-617. [8]
  10. Richard A. Freund: Digging Through History: Archaeology and Religion from Atlantis to the Holocaust. Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. ISBN:1442208821, ISBN:978-1442208827.