![[my picture]](peter_010810.jpg)
I am a professor emeritus (physical chemistry) at the University of Stavanger (UiS) with interest in reaction kinetics of chemical and biological systems. The city of Stavanger (ca. 100 000 inhabitants) lies in the south-western part of Norway. UiS has about 9000 students and its campus (see slide show, left bar) is located near Hafrsfjord.
After an chemical eduction at the CHF in Stuttgart, Germany, and studies at the University of Oslo, I have since 1984 been in Stavanger and have worked on chemical and biological oscillators; especially with the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction and circadian rhythms. The BZ reaction is a chemical oscillator that can show concentration oscillations, sometimes for hours, even in a simple beaker. Apart from oscillatory behavior, chemical oscillators show a variety of surprising (and quite fascinating!) phenomena that normally are associated with biological systems; for example excitability, bistability, chemical pulse propagation and spontaneous structure or pattern formation. Even chaos can be observed. In my circadian rhythm studies I focussed on adaptation behaviors including temperature compensation and other homeostatic properties. In these studies the fungus Neurospora crassa was used as a model organism.
Presently I work on modeling approaches/theoretical concepts concerning robust perfect adaptions in oscillatory and nonoscillatory homeostats.
