Heinz Wolff has died aged 89 (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

Scientist and TV presenter Heinz Wolff has died aged 89.

The renowned professor, famed for hosting BBC Two’s science show The Great Egg Race, died from heart failure on 15 December, his family have stated.

German-born Wolff presented the show from 1977 to 1986, and was a former adviser to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Heinz Wolff moved to the UK at the start of World War Two (Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images For npower)

Colleague and close friend Prof Ian Sutherland said: ‘Heinz was a most inventive and inspirational leader. There was nothing he loved more than having a team of people around him devising completely new ways of doing things.’


Wolff moved to the UK from Berlin at the age of 11 on the day World War Two broke out in September 1939.



He attended school in Oxford and worked in haematology at the city’s Radcliffe Infirmary, where he invented a machine for counting patients’ blood cells.

Heinz Wolff was famed for his bow tie (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

Wolff later graduated from University College London with a first-class honours degree in physiology and physics.

In his TV work, he became instantly synonymous with his trademark bow tie and eccentric hairstyle.

Professor Julia Buckingham, vice chancellor and president of Brunel University, said: ‘Heinz’s remarkable intellect, ideas and enthusiasm combined to make him the sparkling scientist we will so fondly remember.

‘He was a wonderful friend and supporter to staff and to students – and an inspiration to all of us.’

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