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After finishing school with a high school diploma, Dürr studied physics at the Technical University of Stuttgart. He received his diploma here in 1953. In 1956 he received his doctorate under Edward Teller at the University of California, Berkeley. In the same year he received the Award of Merit, Oakland USA. In the same year he became a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Göttingen and Munich and an employee of Werner Heisenberg. In 1958 he presented his "Uniform Theory of Elementary Particles," which became known as the world formula. A friendly collaboration arose between the scientists Heisenberg and Dürr. In 1962 he completed his habilitation at the University of Munich. At the same time he earned his living as a visiting professor in Berkeley, California and Madras, India.
In 1963 he became a scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics and in 1969 Apl. Professor at the University of Munich. In his work he increasingly devoted himself to topics outside his actual field of expertise (nuclear physics), including epistemological and socio-political questions. During this time he married the American Carol Sue Durham. The marriage resulted in four children. In 1975 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina. From 1978 to 1980 he was the managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics of the Werner Heisenberg Institute for Physics; again from 1987 to 1992. His general areas of work included the responsibility of the scientist, disarmament and peacekeeping, as well as philosophical and epistemological questions, on which he published more than 300 publications.
From 1985 to 1993 he was co-editor of the series "Werner Heisenberg, Collected Works. 9 Volumes". On January 27, 1987, Hans-Peter Dürr founded the "Global Challenges Network" initiative in Starnberg, an organization that creates a network of projects and groups that works constructively and together "to overcome the problems that affect us and therefore ours "threaten the natural environment". In the same year, 1987, he was awarded the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, the "Alternative Nobel Prize", in recognition of his well-founded criticism of the Strategic Defense Initiative and his work to harness advanced technologies for peaceful purposes. In 1988 he published the title "The Physicist's Network".
The scientist and Club of Rome member Hans-Peter Dürr is enthusiastically committed to peace and environmental protection. In 1995, Dürr received the Nobel Peace Prize with the international group Pugwash, which is critical of science and research, of which he is a member. He retired in 1997. On June 11, 2004, Interior Minister Otto Schily awarded him the Grand Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. His scientific work already includes more than 100 publications in the field of gravity and epistemology, more than 300 publications on philosophical and epistemological questions and around 20 book publications. In recognition of his great service to the city of Munich, he was granted honorary citizenship in 2007. "Making the living become more alive. How new thinking leads us out of the crisis" (2011) was one of his last publications.
Hans-Peter Dürr died on May 18, 2014 in Munich at the age of 84.
