physics

Jürgen Hennig

Jürgen Hennig is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jürgen Hennig rather than just read about it. In short: Jürgen Klaus Hennig (born in Stuttgart, Germany on March 5, 1951) is a German chemist and medical physicist. Internationally he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for clinical diagnostics.

Key takeaways

Jürgen Hennig belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jürgen Hennig to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jürgen Hennig from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jürgen Klaus Hennig (born in Stuttgart, Germany on March 5, 1951) is a German chemist and medical physicist. Internationally he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for clinical diagnostics. He was until his retirement 2022 the Scientific Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Chairman of the Magnetic Resonance Development and Application Center (MRDAC) at the University Medical Center Freiburg. Despite his retirement, he is still active as a researcher (as of 3/2025). In In addition to numerous scientific awards he received in 2025 the Order of Merit of the state Baden-Wuerttemberg. He is married to Annemarie Hennig Rüegg and has two children, Julian and Olivia. Olivia died in 2009.

Biography

Scientific career From 1969 to 1977 Hennig studied chemistry in Stuttgart, London, Munich and Freiburg. During the years from 1977 to 1981 he was employed as a scientist at the Institute of Physical Chemistry (IPC) of the University of Freiburg, where he completed his doctoral degree on NMR measurements of intramolecular exchange kinetics under the supervision of Herbert Zimmermann. During this time Hennig first came into contact with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the inaugural lecture of his advisor Hans-Heinrich Limbach on the work of Paul Lauterbur, a subsequent winner of the Nobel Prize. From 1982 to 1983 Hennig was a post-doctoral student at the University of Zurich, where he worked in the area of CIDNP Spectroscopy. In 1982 he developed his first own NMR pulse sequence to measure intramolecular exchange processes. During his time in Zurich Hennig decided to focus his future work in the area of NMR method development with less focus on chemistry. Hennig began his work at the University Medical Center Freiburg in 1984 as a scientific researcher in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology. There, in cooperation with the company Bruker Medizintechnik GmbH, he developed the RARE-Method. In the year 1989 he completed his professorial thesis of “Special Imaging Techniques for the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Tomography” at the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg. In the year 1993, Hennig was appointed a professorship at the University Medical Center Freiburg as the head of the MR Tomography work group in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology. In 1998 he was designated as the Director of the Department of Imaging and Functional Medical Physics of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology. In 2001 he became Research Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology. In the same year he founded the Magnetic Resonance Development and Application Center (MRDAC) at the University Medical Center Freiburg. A cooptation at the School of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Freiburg followed in the year 2002. In 2004 Hennig was appointed C4-Professor at the University Medical Center Freiburg and since then he is the Scientific Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology. The research group for research and development in MRI that he founded and headed since 1984 grew to approximately 80 employees by the end of 2012. In 1999 Hennig was the President of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). Since 2008 he has been a joint affiliate to the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Since 2011 he has been a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Jürgen Hennig: Jürgen Hennig (2010) — Jürgen Hennig (2010)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jürgen Hennig

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jürgen Hennig claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jürgen Hennig before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jürgen Hennig ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jürgen Hennig

In research: Jürgen Hennig appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jürgen Hennig in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jürgen Hennig is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 20th-century German chemists, 20th-century German inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jürgen Hennig outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Jürgen Hennig” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Jürgen Hennig in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jürgen Hennig means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jürgen Hennig out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jürgen Hennig in simple terms?

Why does Jürgen Hennig matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jürgen Hennig?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jürgen Hennig.