Michael Michelitsch, born in Asch, Czechoslowakia, in 1931, moved to Stuttgart, Germany, with his parents in 1948. He received his PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physics from the University of Stuttgart/Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in 1958.

From 1958 to 1960, Michael Michelitsch worked on semiconductor research and development at the Standard Electric Company (SEL) in Nuremberg, Germany, where he developed the first operating Tunnel Diode in Germany. In 1960, he joined the IBM Company in Stuttgart, Germany, where he was in charge of setting up the first semiconductor manufacturing line (pilot line) in Germany and earned several patents and awards related to semiconductor production techniques.

After his retirement in 1987, Michael Michelitsch intensified his scientific work on the mathematical theory of fractals and related Chaos theory. He developed hundreds of equations for “fractal” patterns and visualized them using a computer. In this way he created a collection of artwork incorporating approximately 1000 fractal images.

Several scientific articles on fractals have been published by Michael Michelitsch, which include the “Burning Ship” [1], a collaboration work with the Chaos researcher and Nobel Prize candidate, Professor O.E. Roessler from Tuebingen University, Germany. The fractal artwork of Michael Michelitsch, entitled “"Beauty of Chaos – Fractal Geometry -- by Michael Michelitsch"” was presented in 1990 and 1992 in exhibitions throughout Germany. Several fractal images were bought by the IBM Company for advertisement purposes [3], including book covers of scientific monographs, e.g. [4]. The first image of this submission "1Michael_Michelitsch" had been used as the book cover of monograph [4].

Michael Michelitsch passed away in Stuttgart, Germany in 2004. The present biography as well as this submission of some (see [3]) of his artworks of timeless beauty is being administrated by his son Thomas Michelitsch.

[1] Michael Michelitsch and Otto E. Roessler: The “Burning Ship” and Its Quasi Julia Sets, Chaos and Graphics, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp 435-438, 1992.

[2] http://www.theory.org/fracdyn/burningship/

[3] http://www.oocities.org/michael_michelitsch/Michel_Fractals.html

[4] Morfill, Gregor / Scheingraber, Herbert: Chaos ist überall... und es funktioniert. Eine neue Weltsicht; Ullstein, Frankfurt, 1993, 1.Aufl.; 301S, broschiert, 8°, ISBN 3-548-35343-6.

Michael Michelitsch's art on the Web