No. 114/2022

developments in the world like the war in Ukraine. I read Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” many years ago that covers the period 1907 to 1914. I am not fully sure, but I kind of remember the main character Hans Castorp commenting on the mental difficulty of travelling far from your home, how the soul only followed at a much slower pace than the body. Nowadays we step on a plane and after 20 hours are transported from the freezing 4pm darkness of the Berlin winter to the 30°C of shining summer in the antipodes of Bariloche in Patagonia. From Germany to Argentina. From Europe to Latin America. We are transported in space, and in many ways, we are also transported in time. And at the airports we cross with people and lives that spread through the whole world. It is simply impossible to comprehend all that this implies. And it is wonderful at the same time. Distance cooperation will surely benefit from virtual tools developed during the pandemic. But scientific and cultural exchanges involve people, and long-term interactions also have to do with friendship and under­ standing. I am convinced that we are a social species that needs to meet. Not only via a screen but in a lab, around a table, hiking, or in a bar after a conference session. We do not control when and how important ideas emerge. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation makes an invaluable contribution to making such magic possible. Kind regards, Alex 2021 “ THE CHANGES I WITNESSED IN GERMANY GIVE ME HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.” PROFESSOR DR ALEJANDRO FAINSTEIN is a professor at the Instituto Balseiro, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. He conducts research for the Atomic Energy Commission as well as for the Scientific Research Council of Argentina in Bariloche, Argentina. In 1993/94, he was a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. In 2021, he returned to Germany, sponsored by the Foundation, to conduct research at the Paul-Drude- Institut für Festkörperelek­ tronik in Berlin. Photos: private 33 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 114/2022