Der Standard.at, May 13, 2015.
German original: http://derstandard.at/2000015722578/Nobelpreistraeger-Karplus-Ich-werde-behandelt-wie-ein-Rockstar
The Austrian-born Nobel Laureate Martin Karplus is currently in Vienna and receives several honors with mixed feelings.
Standard:
Last week you received the Decoration for Science and the Arts from Federal President Heinz Fischer. You became an honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). What will follow is an honorary doctorate from the University of Vienna, as well as honorary citizenship of the City of Vienna. How do you feel in the light of these many distinctions?
Martin Karplus:
I left Austria 75 years ago and haven’t heard anything from that country afterwards. And now I am here and I am treated like a rock star. One tries to make up for something, of course.
Standard:
But how will that succeed? You were expelled.
Karplus:
Of course what happened in the past cannot be atoned. But it can be remembered to assure it doesn’t happen again. One has to be very careful. Bad people are undistinguishable from the good ones at first sight. One cannot sense that they suddenly are able to kill many people, and they would dispute it anytime. I try to use my sudden fame as a Nobel Laureate to speak with young people, who did not experience the Nazi time; this is why I will speak at the Malta conference soon. There will be guests from Egypt, from Israel, from Iran or from Libya, and it is important to communicate with them. I gladly accept such invitations, because they deal with an important issue and because it is important to me to give these people a little bit of hope for peace.
Standard:
You were awarded the Nobel Prize already in 2013; do you still receive many invitations today?
Karplus:
It has gotten better since the new Nobel Laureates have been around. But I could appear somewhere twice a week. I refuse most occasions, specifically if I realize that the organizers only care about my name, if they want to decorate themselves with a Nobel Laureate. It is important that it is not about me, but about the issue.
Standard:
Last year you said that you feel used and engrossed by Austria. Now you appear conciliatory. Is that assumption correct? How do you think about this country today?
Karplus:
I haven’t thought about Austria at all for a long time. One day someone told me that I should apply for Austrian citizenship, because I could go anywhere within the EU. I was also told that I could reclaim money through an attorney. But I was not interested in that. But I did apply for citizenship nevertheless. In the process, you have to have fingerprints taken so the authorities can ensure you don’t show up in any rogues’ gallery.
Standard:
Really?
Karplus:
Yes, that was funny, because I was told that at my age these prints cannot be read anymore. I finally was granted citizenship anyway and learned that I had never lost it since there was no Austria between 1938 and 1945. How do I think about this country today? Once you visit for a longer period of time, the picture changes. I will probably be able to answer this question in a couple of months after I get back and process all the impressions.
Standard:
Do you still find the time to think about science in the light of all these trips?
Karplus:
You can never give that up entirely. For example, last year I have found interest in brain research. Together with a colleague I realized that the same method used to analyze proteins can also be used to better understand the brain – not the human brain, of course, but a popular animal brain, the hair worm, C. elegans. It was not world-shaking research, but the colleagues working with C elegans told me they were surprised.
Standard:
Coming from your traditional field, theoretical chemistry, how did you get to brain research?
Karplus:
I have always said I want to do something new every four years. Others want more depth in one area. I think the brains stays young if you do something new on a regular basis – and with a little luck the whole body. And the distance is not that far. You need chemistry in order to understand biology.
Standard:
Speaking about chemistry: You received the Nobel Prize for the development of universal computer models to forecast chemical processes. You said yourself that this wasn’t the most important part of your work, but rather the simulation of molecular dynamics. Do you have any idea why the Nobel committee decided this way?
Karplus:
I really have no idea, you will have to read the books in Stockholm in fifty years, this is when they will be accessible and maybe then you’ll understand. Interestingly, I have something in common with Albert Einstein in this regard: he did not receive the Nobel for his most important work, the general theory of relativity, but for the “photoelectric effect.” Every Nobel Laureate gives a speech to explain what drove him in his work. And Einstein only talked about the general theory of relativity. I myself put emphasis on molecular dynamics, too.
Standard:
You also came to Vienna to open an exhibit of your photographs at the University of Vienna. What is shown there?
Karplus:
Those are pictures I took during my second trip to Europe after World War II. I was 23 years old at that time. I have always enjoyed observing nature, even as a child, but in this case I was interested in the people and their lives, and how it will change over the years. So I headed off with my Leica, which my parents gave to me as a gift. I never thought that this could be something valuable. And I didn’t process the film for a long time. Lucky, otherwise the pictures would be already faded.
Standard:
How did the pictures get to be on display?
Karplus:
That was shortly before my 70th birthday. My wife wanted to make cards out of them. She was told that it would be important to show the photos in an exhibition – that eventually took place in Oxford. In the summer of 2013, finally, they were on display in a big exhibit at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where otherwise only the great photo artists are shown.
Standard:
Did you have a special technique to photograph people?
Karplus:
I tried to photograph people as naturally as possible and I pretended to focus on something else. Then I quickly turned sideways and pushed the release. Just 20 years ago I read that the famous photo artist Paul Strand used a similar method.
Standard:
Do you still photograph today?
Karplus:
Yes, when I am traveling and when I feel like I see something new. That might be the case in Tibet soon, I will go there. It is a region that develops a lot slower than Shanghai, of course. But I will look for changes there, too.
Martin Karplus, born on March 15, 1930 in Vienna, is the son of a Jewish family of physicians and merchants from the Döbling district. After fleeing the Nazis he was supposed to study medicine. But he enrolled in chemistry at Harvard University and later moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to join the working group of the future twice Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling (Chemistry and Peace).
In 1996 Karplus took over a chair at Harvard – but also had guest professorships in France. In 2013 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry together with Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel.
Currently a movie about Karplus is being produced in Vienna (airing on May 25, 2015 on ORF III). His photo exhibit La Couleur des annees 1950 will be shown until August 12, 2015 in the main hall of the University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Wien. On May 18, he will give a talk at the University of Vienna (15:30, Carl Auer v. Welsbach Hörsaal, Boltzmanngasse 1, 1090 Wien).