Leif Sieben

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About Me

Hi! I’m Leif (pronounced like “life”, it’s that easy) and it’s great you’re here. You’ll have to figure out yourself why exactly. This website is mostly an archive of my own for my own but it’s great if you find anything useful here. I was born in Germany, grew up near Lucerne in Switzerland and I am currently studying Interdiscplinary Sciences at ETH Zurich with a major in chemistry and computer science.

You can find a copy of my CV and my LinkedIN profile. Feel free to reach out and connect!

Personal Blog

Coming soon (but keep your expectations low).

Education

Research Projects

Here are the research projects that I have been involved in over the years. You’ll find the links to the relevant articles in due time, until then you can also find them on Google Scholar or via my ORC-ID.

Publications

In 2024, I have been a senior research fellow at the student-led security-studies think tank EPIS. I have contributed an article on the future of biological warfare What will biological warfare look like in the 21st century?.

Teaching

Teaching is society’s way to let smarty-pants cash in on their precociousness. I have amply provided the world with mine both cost-free and for gainly employment approximately since the day I learned how to talk. At ETH I have taught the following courses, giving a 45 min recitation each week for 15-25 people.

Philosophy of Science

I have been a contributing writer for both the Chemistry department’s student newspaper “Exsikkator” and the ETH wide student newspaper “Polykum” writing a column on the philosophy of chemistry and science respectively. Some - but by no means all - of this writing was inspired by my own experiences in the lab. You can find a few examples below.

TEDx Talk 2022

TEDx

If your interested in the power of scientific thinking and my own story in science you can also take a look at the TEDx talk I gave a while back.

Volunteering

The Apology of Nagarjuna

nagarjuna

In my matura thesis, I treat the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (ca. 2nd century CE) who was revolutionary in the development of Buddhism as he was the first philosopher willing to question the teachings of the Buddha and to put these onto an independent philosophical basement. His teaching remains enormously influential, if nearly completely unknown in the West, as he initiated the “reform Buddhism” known as Mahayana, which encompasses many of today’s best known types of Buddhism such as Zen Buddhism. In this work I attempted to use and extend Boolean algebra developed by Graham priest to make Nagarjuna more understandable to a Western audience and to prove the point that his arguments do have philosophical and even logical rigour. Nagarjuna is by no means simply a esoteric thinker concerned with mystical enlightenment but a uniquely sharp and original philosopher in his own right.

Alchemy

alchemy

In 2023 I was involved in organizing a seminar on the topic of alchemy for the Swiss Study Foundation. The seminar was in part inspired by the amazing book by James Elkins “What painting is”, a beautiful melange of art history, chemistry and why alchemy is such a powerful metaphor for oil painting, as well as the operette “Alchemy” by Roald Hoffmann, a chemist. The seminar included talks on the history of ideas, art history, chemistry and crucially also by living, practicing alchemists to a broad audience of young Swiss students. There were a number of outstanding talks there and I hope to continue working on this topic. If anyone is willing to collaborate on any topic related to this please, regardless your background, do reach out.