Dankrad's Homepage

My Name is Dankrad Feist, and I am a theoretical physicist with various interests. This homepage serves me as a place to communicate thoughts and opinions to anyone interested.

So who am I? Well, currently I am a PhD student in Theoretical Physics at the DAMTP (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics) in

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Cambridge, UK. Before I started here, I studied Mathematics and Physics in Darmstadt (Germany), at the EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland) and Cambridge. What I have learned I now hope to apply to Skyrmions, a type of topological solitons that have proved suitable to serve as a model for atomic nuclei in certain cases.

Besides that, I have many other interests. One of them is computers; in fact, I would have studied Computer Science if I had decided only two years earlier. I have been told one of my first words was “puter” (for computer) … I wrote my first programs when I was about 10, and it has been one of my fascinations ever since. For a long time, I maintained a quite populer homepage on programming.

Politics is a difficult subject, and my views have changed (in certain areas dramatically) over time. As any reader of this homepage is soon going to find, I have an opinion on many subjects and try to inform my friends about what I think is important, which is probably one of the reasons for running this site.

I really love outdoor activities, such as hiking and cycling. Running has been an important part of my life for some years now. Since coming to Cambridge, I have also taken up rowing.

Music is one of my passions. I am playing the cello and really love playing in an orchestra.

I have never been particularly strong at learning languages, nevertheless I am still trying to get to know quite a few ones. My native language is German. I am fluent in English and quite good at French, having lived in the French part of Switzerland for one year. I tried to learn Italian for a short amount of time, but have not invested enough work to really get anything out of it; now, I am trying to learn Chinese, certainly a long-term project.

A further interest of mine is the future of the planet we inhabit, endangered by our current way of life. One of the most important problems we are facing is climate change, almost certainly caused by human activity. This is why I am interested in sustainability in general, and energy efficiency (which has to be the most important measure to achieve this) in particular.

Orpheus is an assiociation of young physicists in Germany, particularly alumni of the (German selection process of the) Physics Olympiad. I am currently serving as chairman for it and have for a long time been active in organizing its seminars and meetings.