Albrecht Fölsing was a trained physicist turned into a scientific journalist. Having studied physics in Berlin, Philadelphia, and Hamburg, he worked as an academic research assistant for the German electron synchrotron named DESY. In the years 1973–2001, Fölsing was head of the Nature and Science Department of the North German Radio and Television. He has written several biographies of well-known physicists and studies of the "cheating factor" in science.