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My Vienna: space invaders in the capital

Above: WN_31 at the corner of Ballgasse and Rauhensteingasse, 9 July 2024 (P15).

Don’t worry: it’s not 1529, nor is it 1683, and there are no bands of marauders on horseback arriving for a large and lengthy siege. This also does not include anything from outside the Solar System. Instead, this is about a human artist and their little creations sprinkled throughout the Austrian capital city. In fact, I’d claim their “invasion” has already succeeded.

When a wae lad was I, the video game Space Invaders was a kind of dawn, an opening to a brand new world. The lasting effects snuck into many aspects of life, including the time I dedicated to the learning, pursuit, and practice of science. In time, a video game about a battle to ward off waves of little aliens required the purchase of a large bulky black console, accompanied by a large bulky black joystick with a big red button. In the decades since, the technological leap into the first-quarter of the 21st-century means that Space Invaders is available as an online web-application, easily called upon anytime on demand.

In Vienna, the sight of little aliens prompted immediate personal curiosity, and I spent parts of three consecutive summers wandering the streets to find as many possible little “visitors”.

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My Vienna: Johann Strauss II, traces & places

Above: Danube river at dusk, facing southeast from Brigittenauer Sporn. Photo, 11 Jun 2022 (X70).

Vienna is a historical city of music with the likes of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and more. In the mid- to late-19th century, the Strauss family of composers created a dominant scene in Viennese waltz (Wiener Waltz). Johann Strauss II’s “An der schönen blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) is one of the best-known compositions of classical music. The song was used famously in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “2001: A Space Odyssey“.

And as in the movie, the soaring feelings of hopeful anticipation during the spacecraft’s journey and docking with the spinning space station have become as routine as my arrival onto Viennese shores from the other side of the big eastern pond. I rely on Vienna to provide the gravity to maintain balance and spirit; this much has stayed true over multiple consecutive summers.

I’ve spent over 100 total days in Vienna, explored many of her streets and districts, and walked hundreds of kilometres. Efforts to immerse myself in various types of the city’s art and architecture have been accompanied by the sounds of brass horns and sweeping strings in a back-and-forth “dance” that spans the entire city. There’s new opportunity to learn about the song’s composer who was born, raised, studied, worked, and died in the Austrian capital city.

With the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss II’s birth in 2025, the city of Vienna celebrates the occasion with a multitude of arts and culture events over the entire 2025 year.

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Rathauspark, Rathaus, WienLiebe, Stadt Wien, Vienna, Wien, Österreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

24 for 24: Foto(ein)s in 2024

Above/featured: “Hashtag Wienliebe” (Vienna love), Rathauspark. Photo, 15 Jul 2024 (P15).

2024 has been an interesting year of personal challenge and discovery. A conclusion for the family house provided fresh impetus to inhabit (in the short term) new spaces and places to improve overall health and happiness. In Vienna, I spent a full month for the third consecutive summer. Yes, it was continent hot, but time in the Austrian capital was both glorious and productive as expected. In Calgary is a city I hadn’t visited in many decades, and I witnessed a very happy aunt surrounded by many family members on her centenary year. In California’s Bay Area is a place where I hadn’t set foot in over ten years, but whose daily temperatures and chances of consistent sun offer a higher level of content.

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My Vienna: Ludwig Boltzmann was here

The name is a large presence, particularly to many in science.

To others, the name might have little significance as any other name, like Helmut Grossuhrmacher. OK, I made that name up.

A name I didn’t make up is Ludwig Boltzmann, whose contributions to science are fundamental in an understanding of heat- or thermal-physics, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics. After several years of undergraduate- and graduate-level physics, Boltzmann is one of many names imprinted into memory, firmly established in the left-side of my brain.

Boltzmann highlights

• b/✵ 20 February 1844 – d/✟ 5 September 1906.
• Born and raised in Vienna, Boltzmann enroled at age 19 in the University of Vienna to study mathematics and physics.
• Supervised by Josef Stefan, Boltzmann completed his doctoral dissertation “Über die mechanische Bedeutung des zweiten Hauptsatzes der mechanischen Wärmetheorie” (On the mechanical significance of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) in 1866 at the age of 22.
• 1869–1873: University of Graz, with visits to Heidelberg and Berlin.
• 1873–1876: University of Vienna.
• 1876–1890: University of Graz.
• 1890–1894: (Ludwig Maximilian) University of Munich.
• 1894–1900: after Josef Stefan’s retirement, Boltzmann returns as professor of mathematics and physics at University of Vienna.
• 1900–1902: Leipzig University.
• 1902–1906: University of Vienna; he also teaches physics, mathematics, and philosophy.
• Doctoral students Boltzmann supervised and advised included: Paul Ehrenfest, Lise Meitner, Stefan Meyer, Walther Nernst.
• Speaking tour of the United States in 1905, including his stay that summer in Berkeley at the University of California. Evident from his trip report, Reise eines deutschen Professors ins Eldorado, is his sense of humour.

Time has been kind to Vienna, a city filled with notable personalities in arts, architecture, music, and science. Throughout its cemeteries, the city has assigned “graves of honour” (Ehrengrab) for many, including Boltzmann. Finding his final spot was one of many favourite moments in 2018. However, Boltzmann’s significance to the University of Vienna, to the physics world, and to time I spent in physics persuaded me to create a short (walking-)tour of Vienna to highlight some of his traces and memorialization in the city.

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Nussberg, 19. Bezirk, Döbling, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, fotoeins.com

23 for 23: Foto(ein)s in 2023

Above/featured: Vienna’s green vineyards on Nussberg, with Kahlenberg at centre in the background. Photo, 14 Jun 2023.

A year in review typically provides coverage spanning a period of six months or more; the period doesn’t even have to be a continuous stretch. But in this case, my highlights come solely from a period of six weeks in May and June. All else pales by comparison.

All of the images presented below have been corrected for geometric distortion and rotation, with further adjustments to image-crop, brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, clarity, sharpness, vibrance, saturation, and colour levels. These images are as always best viewed on screens larger than a miniscule mobile.

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