From Georg Dresen: Memories of Mervyn in Potsdam.

After a brief first encounter with Mervyn in Cambridge we later interacted quite a bit during my visit at RSES and his multiple visits at GFZ in the late 90’s, early 2000’s.

As intimidating as he was scrutinizing my post-doc project at MIT, his support for starting the lab in Potsdam was crucial. After some hick-ups during installation of PI Ltd. machine no. 4, Mervyn came by repeatedly to simply make sure that we were doing it right. Not an easy job as the photo shows. Listening to his lectures was a real privilege and enormously self-assuring for all of us at the time. During his visits, we shared many thoughts on science, wine, food and life in general that left a mark with us and brought Mervyn close to our hearts.  

Michael and me listening to Mervyn’s 101 on the apparatus in 1994.

After discussing all the potential safety issues required by stringent German safety laws, we later realized that our first provisional lab was located right above a 500 kg WWII dud bomb!