Fwd: Lawrence Krauss Website Form: Invitation to Gottingen Science Literature Festival

Name: Dr. Helmut Grubmuller / Max Planck Institute, Goettingen, Germany Phone: Subject: Invitation to Gottingen Science Literature Festival

Message:
Dear Dr. Krauss,

with great enthusiasm, and on behalf of my colleagues at the Max Planck Institutes in G0ttingen (Germany), the Gitittingen State and University Library as well as the Gottinger Literaturherbst, I would like to cordially invite you to be our guest and speaker in the scientific literature lecture series "Wissenschaft beim Literaturherbst" of this year's literature festival. This event will take place from October 12th to 21st, 2018.

The Gifittinger Literaturherbst, established 26 years ago, is the only German literature festival which gives a stage to science. To this aim, the scientific lecture series gathers international top researchers and science journalists in the venerable Paulinerkirche in Gottingen every year since 2007. There, the speakers present surprising, fascinating, and spectacular findings of their research and highlights from their books. Our audience is the broad public but also many scientists attend the lectures.

Internationally renowned researchers such as Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Lisa Kaltenegger, Roger Penrose, Steven Pinker, Wolf Singer, Michael Shermer, or Lee Smolin have already found their way to Gottingen to give a lecture there, proving the international reputation of the event.

The idea of inviting you as a speaker for this year was most enthusiastically discussed and strongly supported by Gottinger Literaturherbst's advisory board. We are convinced that your latest book, "A Universe from Nothing", would be of great interest to the broad audience the festival has been able to attract ever since. Please feel free to cover also any other scientific topic of your choice, outside the scope of your latest book.

We would be happy to organize your visit to Gottingen in the best possible way and according to your wishes. Regarding the date, we are still flexible within the period from October 12th to 21st, 2018, and hopefully will be able to realize your desired date.

We sincerely hope that you decide to accept our invitation and look very much forward to your response.

With our best regards,

Nils Brose, Director at the Max Planck Institute fur Experimental Medicine Helmut Grubm0ller, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry Stephan Herminghaus, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Wolfram Horstmann, Director of the Gottingen State and University Library Sami Solanki, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research Hans-Peter Herberhold, Management of Gottinger Literaturherbst GmbH

Dear Dr. Grubmuller:

I am honored by this invitation and would be delighted to accept in principle. I do not know if the invitation comes with a fee. My normal speaking fee is large, but I would be willing to work within whatever resources you might have. I assume you would also cover business class travel expenses.

I am very excited by the possibility of participating in this literature festival at Gottingen, which is a city I have also always wanted to visit.

Before we finalize this, I also feel the need to let you know that there has been publicity here in the United States associated with an online tabloid defamatory article about me, which has caused a number of groups in the US to cancel speaking engagements by me. Other groups have continued to have me participate in their events. I am hoping this will pass, as I have written online impugning the credibility of the report. Nevertheless, I felt I owed it to you, if you were not aware of this, to make you aware of it. I am hoping it will not affect your decision to invite me, but as you have been so kind to make the invitation, I felt it would only be honorable to make sure you are aware of the current situation before you proceed.

All best

Lawrence M. Krauss

Dear Dr. Krauss,

many thanks for your quick and very positive reply, which we all here were happy to read. We very much appreciate your kind offer to visit us even though -- you guessed correctly -- our resources are limited.

We will certainly be able to fully cover your business class travel expenses and accommodation in our historic Hotel Gebhards, which is very close to the city center and a very convenient place. The fee we can offer, EUR 500,--, is best described as symbolic. I should also say that the location for the lecture, the Paulinerkirche

https://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/wir-ueber-uns/portrait/geschichte/paulinerkirche/

(an old church, which is now used as a library -- quite fitting I think; also Richard Dawkins liked it very much!) has limited space,

such that we can host an audience of max 250. From previous lectures I would be quite confident it will be fully booked, though.

I was indeed not aware of the unwelcome publicity you mentioned, and would like to thank you very much for openly sharing this info with us,

which is very fair and honorable. Naturally, our committee has now looked into it and has joined me in my strong belief

that nobody should be prejudged in the absence of clear evidence, which is why we do not see any reason not to proceed.

We would thus be delighted and honoured if you would accept our invitation, would very much hope we can fix a date

between October 12th and 21st, 2018 that is convenient for you. If you wish, we would also be happy to arrange an additional

lecture meeting with physics students and faculty at Goettingen University or at our Max Planck Institute, as well as some sightseeing of

Goettingen science history.

Personally, I very much wish you the investigation will be finished very soon and things calm down, as it must cost you an awful lot of energy, brains, and time.

With my best regards,

Helmut Grubmueller

enlightenment in, of all places, Germany!

Lawrence M. Krauss
Director, The Origins Project at ASU
Co-Director, Cosmology Initiative
Foundation Professor
School of Earth & Space Exploration and Physics Department Arizona State University, P.O. Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Research Office: | Assistant (Jessica): = Origins Office (Cynthia): =
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