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About our emblem / Unser Wappen

wappen Milton T. Stubbs

wappen Milton T. Stubbs

No, it's not a remnant from a Turkish occupation of Halle. Nor has it anything to do with the former regime in the area.

The emblem to the left is based on that of the town of Halle an der Saale   . I have heard two different versions of how this came about:

(1) (Courtesy of the Oberbürgermeisterin)

Halle grew rich as a result of salt, which is buried somewhere under the town. The emblem shows a crucible in which the salt water was put. After heating with fire (the lower 'star'), the water evaporates, leaving salt crystals.

Although this is not ideal for a protein crystallographer, it's not a bad start....

(2) (Courtesy of the Halle Tourist Service)

The other story goes like this - the people of Halle, being rich from selling salt, petitioned the King to have a wall built around the town. The King said that they would have to work day and night ("by star- and moonlight") in order to pay for it. The town accordingly worked a 24-7, the wall was built, and Halle an der Saale acheived town status.

A good example for students of crystallography.....

(3) But as everyone can see, it really represents the lunes of an X-ray pattern (see the arrangements of the spots above) resulting from diffraction of a crystal (top), which allows us to solve the structure (bottom)

Milton STubbs and OB

Milton STubbs and OB

The Oberbürgermeisterin of Halle and I

(at the Halle Conference on Recombinant Protein Production   , February 27th - March 1st, 2003.

"Halle is famous as being the birthplace of the great English composer Handel (Händel in German)"

(For more information on Halle, follow this link to the Halle an der Saale    homepage).

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