The German language, along with English and French, was one of the leading languages of science from the late 19th century until the end of World War II.[4][5] After the war, because so many scientific researchers and teachers' careers had been ended either by Nazi Germany, the denazification process, the American Operation Paperclip and Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim, or simply losing the war, "Germany, German science, and German as the language of science had all lost their leading position in the scientific community."[6]
Aerial image of the science museum "Deutsches Museum" (center) in the city center of Munich on an island of the Isar river
The Deutsches Museum, 'German Museum' of Masterpieces of Science and Technology in Munich is one of the largest science and technology museums in the world in terms of exhibition space, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology.[9][10]
The Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, 'Fritz Thyssen Foundation' supports young scientists and research projects. It was founded in 1959 and is located in Cologne. The purpose of the foundation, with an endowment capital of €542.4 million,[12] is to promote science at scientific universities and research institutes, primarily in Germany, under particular consideration on young scientists.[13]
The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), officially: Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH, is a privately financed IT institute and, together with the University of Potsdam, forms the Digital Engineering Faculty. It is located in Potsdam-Babelsberg and researches practical and applied topics in digital technologies. Its founder and namesake is SAP founder Hasso Plattner.
The Helmholtz Prize is awarded with €20,000 every two to three years to European scientists for scientific and technological research in metrology.[15]
The global spread of the printing press with movable types and an oil-based ink was a process that began around 1440 with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (c.1400–1468) and continued until the introduction of printing based on this procedure in all parts of the world in the 19th century, thus creating the conditions for the dissemination of generally accessible scientific publications emerging to the revolution of science.[16]
Johannes Kepler discovered the laws according to which planets are moving around the Sun, who were called Kepler's laws after him. With his introduction to calculating with logarithms, Kepler contributed to the spread of this type of calculation. In mathematics, a numerical method for calculating the volume of wine barrels with integrals was named former Kepler's barrel rule.[23] He made optics to a subject of scientific investigation and confirmed the discoveries made with the telescope by his Italian contemporary Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). He worked on the theory of the telescope and invented the refracting astronomical or Keplerian telescope,[24] which involved a considerable improvement over the Galilean telescope.[25] Kepler also made the invention of the valveless gear pump, because a mine owner needed a device to pump water out of his mine.[26]
Paul Forman in 1971 argued the remarkable scientific achievements in quantum physics were the cross-product of the hostile intellectual atmosphere whereby many scientists rejected Weimar Germany and Jewish scientists, revolts against causality, determinism and materialism, and the creation of the revolutionary new theory of quantum mechanics. The scientists adjusted to the intellectual environment by dropping Newtonian causality from quantum mechanics, thereby opening up an entirely new and highly successful approach to physics. The "Forman Thesis" has generated an intense debate among historians of science.[32][33]
The so-called Deutsche Physik, 'German physics' was a movement that some German physicists hold during the Nazi period, which mixed physics with racist views. They rejected new discoveries in physics as being too theoretical and advocated a stronger emphasis on empirical evidence. This physics was influenced by anti-Semitic ideas that were widespread in the polarized political climate of the Weimar Republic. In addition, some leading theoretical physicists at that time were of Jewish descent. Leading representatives of this ideology were the Bavarian physicist Johannes Stark (1874–1957, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919) and the German-Hungarian physicist Philipp Lenard (1862–1947, Nobel Prize winner of 1905).[34] Notably, the latter labeled Albert Einstein's contributions to science as Jewish physics.[35]
The bio-chemist Adolf Butenandt (1903–1995) independently worked out the molecular structure of the primary male sex hormone of testosterone and was the first to successfully synthesize it from cholesterol in 1935.
Engineering
Replica of the first electron microscope from 1933 by Ernst Ruska
The physicist and optician Ernst Abbe (1840–1905) founded in the 19th century together with the entrepreneurs Carl Zeiss (1840–1905) and Otto Schott (1851–1935) the basics of modern Optical engineering and developed many optical instruments like microscopes and telescopes. Since 1899 he was the sole owner of the Carl Zeiss AG and played a decisive role of setting up the enterprise Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen (today Schott AG). These enterprises are very successful worldwide up to present time (21st century).
The engineer Rudolf Diesel (1858–1913) was the inventor of an internal combustion engine, the Diesel engine. He first published his idea of an engine with a particularly high level of efficiency in 1893 in his work Theorie und Konstruktion eines rationellen Wärmemotors, 'Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Motor'.[43] After 1893, he succeeded in building such an engine in a laboratory at the Augsburg Machine Factory (now MAN). Through his patents registered in many countries and his public relations work, he gave his name to the engine and the associated Diesel fuel.
Manfred von Ardenne (1907–1997) was a scientist, engineer and active as a researcher primarily in applied physics and is the originator of around 600 inventions and patents in radio and television technology, electron microscopy, nuclear, plasma and medical technology.
Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), a similarly interdisciplinary scientist, was one of the first people to hypothesize the theory of continental drift that was later developed into the overarching geological theory of plate tectonics.
After the National Socialistic laws banning Jewish doctors in 1933, the fields of neurology and psychiatry faced a decline of 65% of its professors and teachers. The research shifted to a 'Nazi neurology', with subjects such as eugenics or euthanasia.[52]
Besides natural sciences, German researchers have added much to the development of humanities.
Albertus Magnus (c.1200–1280) was a polymath, philosopher, lawyer, natural scientist, theologian, Dominican and Bishop of Regensburg. His great, diverse knowledge earned him the name Magnus ("the Great"), the title of Doctor of the Church and the honorary title of doctor universalis.[53]
While Kant was one of the first philosopher of German idealism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) is one of the most influential and last representative of it. His philosophy seeks to interprete the whole of reality in its variety of manifestations, including historical development, in a coherent, systematic and definitive manner. It is divided into "logic", "natural philosophy" and "Phenomenology of Geist", which also includes a philosophy of history. His thinking also became the starting point for numerous other movements in the theory of science, sociology, history, theology, politics, jurisprudence and art theory, and it also influenced other areas of culture and intellectual life.
Contemporary examples are the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann, the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the historian Reinhart Koselleck and the legal historian Michael Stolleis. In order to promote the international visibility of research in these fields a new prize, Geisteswissenschaften International, 'Humanities international', was established in 2008; it serves the translation of studies of humanities into English.[55]
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a PrussianGeneralmajor, army reformer, military scientist and ethicist. Clausewitz became known through his unfinished major work Vom Kriege, which deals with the problem of the theory of war. His theories on strategy, tactics and philosophy had a major influence on the military theory in all Western countries and are still taught at military academies until today. They are also used in business management and marketing. The most used quotation is the statement from his masterpiece: "War is the continuation of policy with other means."[56]
Oswald Boelcke was the progenitor of air-to-air combat tactics, fighter squadron organization, early-warning systems, and the German air force; he has been dubbed "the father of air combat".[57][58] From his first victories, the news of his success instructed and motivated both his fellow fliers and the German public. It was at his instigation that the Imperial German Air Service founded its Jastaschule (Fighter School) to teach his aerial tactics. The promulgation of his Dicta Boelcke set tactics for the German fighter force. The concentration of fighter airplanes into squadrons gained Germany air supremacy on the Western Front, and was the basis for their wartime successes.[59]
Karl Ferdinand Braun, who has been called one of the fathers of television, radio telegraphy and who built the first semiconductor.[78][79][80][81]
Fritz Haber invented the Haber–Bosch process. It is estimated that it provides the food production for nearly half of the world's population.[82][83] Haber has been called one of the most important scientists and chemists in human history.[84][85][86]
Albert Einstein, who has been called the greatest physicist of all time and one of the fathers of modern physics.[87]
Wernher von Braun, who co-developed the V-2 rocket, the first artificial object to travel into space. Described by others as the "father of space travel",[90] the "father of rocket science",[91] or the "father of the American lunar program".[92]
↑ "The New York Times Travel Guide". The New York Times. 10 August 2008. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2024. This is the largest technological museum of its kind in the world.
↑ Paul Forman, "Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment", Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 3 (1971): 1–116
↑ Helge Kragh, Quantum generations: a history of physics in the twentieth century (2002) ch 10
1 2 "Georgius Agricola". University of California – Museum of Paleontology. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
1 2 Rafferty, John P. (2012). Geological Sciences; Geology: Landforms, Minerals, and Rocks. New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, p. 10. ISBN9781615305445
↑ Robinson, Walter (February 1995). "Introduction". Instant Art History. Random House Publishing Group. p.240. ISBN0-449-90698-1. The father of official art history was a German named Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68).
↑ Smil, Vaclav (2004). Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. p.156. ISBN9780262693134.
↑ Bellis, Mary (15 May 2019) [First published 2006 at inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050298.htm]. "Biography of Konrad Zuse, Inventor and Programmer of Early Computers". thoughtco.com. Dotdash Meredith. Archived from the original on 13 December 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2021. Konrad Zuse earned the semiofficial title of 'inventor of the modern computer'[who?]
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate causes of phenomena, and usually frame their understanding in mathematical terms. They work across a wide range of research fields, spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic and particle physics, through biological physics, to cosmological length scales encompassing the universe as a whole. The field generally includes two types of physicists: experimental physicists who specialize in the observation of natural phenomena and the development and analysis of experiments, and theoretical physicists who specialize in mathematical modeling of physical systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena.
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 by George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, it began instruction in 1737 and is recognized as the oldest university in Lower Saxony.
Technische Universität Berlin is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first German university to adopt the name "Technische Universität".
Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist and writer known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. Along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard was a Hungarian-German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 "for his work on cathode rays" and the discovery of many of their properties. One of his most important contributions was the experimental realization of the photoelectric effect. He discovered that the energy (speed) of the electrons ejected from a cathode depends only on the frequency, and not the intensity, of the incident light.
Unsere Besten is a television series shown on German public television (ZDF) in November 2003, similar to the BBC series 100 Greatest Britons and that program's spin-offs.
Deutsche Physik or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s which had the support of many eminent physicists in Germany. The term was taken from the title of a four-volume physics textbook by Nobel laureate Philipp Lenard in the 1930s.
The German Physical Society is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked in 2014 when it reached 63,000, but it has been decreasing since then. It holds an annual conference and multiple spring conferences, which are held at various locations and along topical subjects of given sections of the DPG. The DPG serves the fields of pure and applied physics and aims to foster connections among German physicists, as well as the exchange of ideas between its members and foreign colleagues. The bylaws of the DPG commit the organization and its members to maintain scientific integrity and ethics, including freedom, tolerance, truthfulness, and dignity in scientific work, as well as promoting gender equality in the fields of physics and related sciences.
Science and technology in Italy has a long presence, from the Roman era and the Renaissance. Through the centuries, it has made many significant inventions and discoveries in biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences. In 2019, Italy was the world's sixth-highest producer of scientific articles, publishing more than 155,000 documents. From 1996 to 2000, it published two million. It ranked 26th in the Global Innovation Index for 2024.
References
Franks, Norman; Bailey, Frank; Guest, Russell (1993). Above the Lines: A Complete Record of the Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps 1914–1918. London: Grub Street. ISBN978-0-948817-73-1.
Head, R. G. (2016). Oswald Boelcke: Germany's First Fighter Ace and Father of Air Combat. London: Grub Street. ISBN978-1-910690-23-9.
Competing Modernities: Science and Education, Kathryn Olesko and Christoph Strupp. (A comparative analysis of the history of science and education in Germany and the United States)
Audretsch, D. B., Lehmann, E. E., & Schenkenhofer, J. (2018). Internationalization strategies of hidden champions: lessons from Germany. Multinational Business Review.
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