Heinz Wolff

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Professor Heinz Wolff, courtesy of NPL

Professor Heinz Wolff (born 29 April 1928)^[1] is a German-British scientist, and television and radio presenter. He is best known for his television and radio work, including the TV series The Great Egg Race.

He was born in Berlin, and moved to Britain with his family at the age of ten, arriving on the day World War II broke out. After school, he worked at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and at the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit near Cardiff, before going to University College London, where he gained a first class honours degree in Physiology and Physics.

He spent much of his early career in bioengineering, a term which he himself coined in 1954 to take account of recent advances in physiology. He became an honorary member of the European Space Agency in 1975, and in 1983 he founded the Brunel Institute for Bioengineering, which is involved in biological research during weightless spaceflight. Wolff was the scientific director and co-founder of Project Juno, the private British-Soviet joint venture which sent Helen Sharman to the Mir space station.

Known to British TV audiences for his bow tie and strong German accent, reinforcing the stereotype of the eccentric but kind-hearted German scientist, much of his recognition by the public is due to his past appearances as presenter of The Great Egg Race and Experiments which Changed the World, and as a presenter/judge for the annual Young Scientist of the Year contest in the UK, all in the late 1970s to early 1980s.

He is now Emeritus Professor of Bioengineering at Brunel University.

He is one of the few people to read premature reports of his own death. The Sun wrongly reported his death when another Professor Heinz Wolff at a British university died.

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Professor Wolff was one of the participants in Top Gear's "High IQ Burnout" episode (first aired 14 December 2003), where he and two other intellectuals (Colin Pillinger and Brian Sewell) were challenged to produce the most smoke from spinning the tyres of a 480hp Nissan 300 ZX. Top Gear's host Jeremy Clarkson received an honorary doctorate from Brunel University on 21 July 2003, one day before Dr. Wolff received his title of Emeritus Professor.
He collects teddy bears
Heinz Wolff has been interviewed by Ali G (played by Sasha Baron Cohen)
He celebrated his 80th birthday on the 29th April 2008 by hosting a gathering on the campus of Brunel University.