The annual Wilhelm Macke award is presented to graduate students at the JKU in recognition of an outstanding thesis in physics. Candidates for the award present their thesis topic in a unique, entertaining, and comprehensible way to an audience of school students. The students then vote for the winner from among five presentations in various topics in the fields of physics.  

Clemens Staudinger managed to win the audience over with his graduate thesis titled “Die spinnen, die Elektronen”. Staudinger’s research explores what penguins and electrons have in common, thereby impressively demonstrating that theoretical physics can also be exciting. The junior research remarked, “Exploring the complex interaction between particles is fascinating.” An interesting property of quantum particles is the so-called magnetically influenced “spin”. Staudinger spoke about this ‘spin’ in particular and impressed the school students, placing ahead of Lukas Kehrer and Andreas Hinterreiter.