Bundesverdienstkreuz for Heinz Billing

Computer and gravitational wave astronomy pioneer highly honored

The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) congratulates Heinz Billing for beeing awarded with the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit), first class. Heinz Billing is often mentioned in the same breath as Konrad Zuse as an important German computer pioneer, but he has also been intensively involved in gravitational wave research since the early 1970s. Without his work, projects like GEO600, the British-German gravitational wave detector near Hannover and the US LIGO project (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory) would not have been possible.