The Orchid Cage

The First Attempt.- The Second Attempt.- The Third Attempt.- Epilog.- Afterword by Hans Esselborn.

Herbert W. Franke (1927-2022) was born in Vienna. He studied physics and philosophy there. In 1951 he received his doctorate in theoretical physics. Today Franke is known as the most important post-war German-language writer of the science fiction genre. In 2017, he was awarded the title "Grand Master of Science Fiction" by the European Science Fiction Association for his complete works. However, Franke is also recognized worldwide as a pioneer of algorithmic art. His intellectual work is based equally on the rationality of the researcher and the creativity of the artist - thus a pioneer of bridging art and science since the 1950s. He was particularly interested in creating aesthetically interesting structures with the help of computers. In addition to creating works of art, Franke has also been intensively involved in questions of rational aesthetics. In his "rational theory of art," published as early as the mid-1960s, he described the perception of art as a construct that can be grasped with the help of information theory. Since his student days, he has also worked as a speleologist and was the first to describe theoretically that stalagmites could be dated by the C14-method in 1952. Today, his method is well established and forms an important building block for climate research of the fading ice age; thus, Franke is also one of the pioneers of paleoclimatological research based on isotope measurements. In addition, Franke was also concerned with the aspect that a program should be sought to describe the physical world instead of a "world formula." Using cellular automata, he developed visualizations of different world models, addressing the question of the extent to which "real" chance plays a role in such a world program. He published these findings in a philosophical-theoretical book entitled "The P-Principle" in 1995. In 1980, the Austrian Ministry of Education and the Arts awarded him the professional title of Professor, and in 2007 he