Science and technology in Germany has a long and illustrious history, and research and development efforts form an integral part of the country's economy. Germany has been the home of some of the most prominent researchers in various scientific disciplines, notably physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering. [1] Before World War II, Germany had produced more Nobel laureates in scientific fields than any other nation, and was the preeminent country in the natural sciences. [2] [3] Germany is currently the nation with the 3rd most Nobel Prize winners.
The German language was an important language of science from the late 19th century through the end of World War II. 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." [4]
Today, scientific research in the country is supported by industry, the network of German universities and scientific state-institutions such as the Max Planck Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The raw output of scientific research from Germany consistently ranks among the world's highest. [5] Germany was declared the most innovative country in the world in the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index and was ranked 8th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023. [6]
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is granted to ten scientists and academics every year. With a maximum of €2.5 million per award it is one of highest endowed research prizes in the world. [7] The prize and the mentioned organization above is named after the German polymath and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who was a contemporary and competitor of Isaac Newton (1642–1727).
The Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award is a prize for "outstanding achievements" in the field of analytical spectroscopy. The prize is named in honor of chemist Robert Bunsen and physicist Gustav Kirchhoff (→ Physics).
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was one of the originators of the so-called Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. He was an astronomer, physicist, mathematician and natural philosopher. 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 integrals was named former Kepler's barrel rule. [8] He made optics to a subject of scientific investigation and confirmed the discoveries made with the telescope by his contemporary Galileo Galilei. He worked on the theory of the telescope and invented the refracting astronomical or Keplerian telescope, which involved a considerable improvement over the Galilean telescope. [9]
Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) was a scientist, inventor, mathematician and physicist from Magdeburg. He is best known for his experiments on air pressure using the Magdeburg hemispheres. He is considered the founder of vacuum technology.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) was a physicist and inventor of measuring instruments from Danzig. The temperature unit degrees Fahrenheit (℉) was named after him.
Gustav Kirchhoff (1824–1887) was a physicist from Königsberg who made a particular contribution to the study of electricity. Today he is best known for Kirchhoff's rules, the fundamental laws of electrical engineering, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects. With Robert Bunsen (1811–1899) he developed flame spectroscopy in 1859, which can be used to detect chemical elements with high specificity. [10] Bunsen was a chemist from Göttingen, he discovered together with Kirchhoff the elements caesium and rubidium in 1861. He perfected the Bunsen burner, which is named after him, and invented the Bunsen cell and a grease-spot photometer.
The work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck was crucial to the foundation of modern physics, which Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger developed further. [11] They were preceded by such key physicists as Hermann von Helmholtz, Joseph von Fraunhofer, and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, among others. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays, an accomplishment that made him the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 [12] and eventually earned him an element name, roentgenium. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation were pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication; the unit of frequency was named in his honor "Hertz". [13] Mathematical aerodynamics was developed in Germany, especially by Ludwig Prandtl.
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.
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. [14] [15]
Justus von Liebig (1803 – 1873) made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. [16]
At the start of the 20th century, Germany garnered fourteen of the first thirty-one Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, starting with Hermann Emil Fischer in 1902 and until Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius in 1931. [12]
Otto Hahn is considered a pioneer of radioactivity and radiochemistry with the discovery of nuclear fission together with the Austrian scientist Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann in 1938, the scientific and technological basis for the utilization of atomic energy.
The bio-chemist Adolf Butenandt 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.
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors and engineers, such as Johannes Gutenberg, who is credited with the invention of movable type printing in Europe; Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first electronic computer. [17] German inventors, engineers and industrialists such as Zeppelin, Siemens, Daimler, Diesel, Otto, Wankel, Von Braun and Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology including the beginnings of space travel. [18] [19] The engineer Otto Lilienthal laid some of the fundamentals for the science of aviation. [20]
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 our time (21st century).
In the Thirties of the 20th century the electrical engineers Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll developed at the "Technische Hochschule zu Berlin" the first electron microscope. [21]
Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1472/1475–1520) and Matthias Ringmann (1482–1511) were cartographers of the Renaissance. In 1507 they created the first world map on which the land masses in the west of the Atlantic Ocean were named “America” after Amerigo Vespucci. The Waldseemüller map of 1507 has been part of the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage since 2005.
Emil Behring, Ferdinand Cohn, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Friedrich Loeffler and Rudolph Virchow, six key figures in microbiology, were from Germany. Alexander von Humboldt's (1769–1859) work as a natural scientist and explorer was foundational to biogeography, he was one of the outstanding scientists of his time and a shining example for Charles Darwin. [22] Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) was an eclectic Russian-born botanist and climatologist who synthesized global relationships between climate, vegetation and soil types into a classification system that is used, with some modifications, to this day. [23] The Frankfurt surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist Anton de Bary (1831–1888) laid one of the fundamentals of the plant pathology and was one of the discoverer of the symbiosis of organisms.
Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919) discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a tree of life relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, for example ecology and phylum . His published artwork of different lifeforms includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, collected in his Kunstformen der Natur ("Art Forms of Nature"), an international bestseller and a book which would go on to influence the Art Nouveau (German Jugendstil, youth style). But Haeckel was also a promoter of scientific racism [24] and embraced the idea of Social Darwinism.
Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), a similarly interdisciplinary scientist, was one of the first people to hypothesize the theory of continental drift which was later developed into the overarching geological theory of plate tectonics.
Wilhelm Wundt is credited with the establishment of psychology as an independent empirical science through his construction of the first laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879. [25]
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute founded by Oskar and Cécile Vogt was among the world's leading institutions in the field of brain research. [26] They collaborated with Korbinian Brodmann to map areas of the cerebral cortex.
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. [26]
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. [27]
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist, "the prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology". [28] Heinrich Schliemann was a wealthy businessman and a devotee of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeological excavator of Hisarlik (since 1871), now presumed to be the site of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. Theodor Mommsen is widely counted as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th century; his work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research. Max Weber was together with Karl Marx among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society and is regarded as one of the founder of the Sociology.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a philosopher of the Enlightenment and professor of logic and metaphysics in Königsberg. Kant is one of the most important representatives of Western philosophy. His work Critique of Pure Reason marks a turning point in the history of philosophy and the beginning of modern philosophy.
While Kant was one of the first philosopher of German idealism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) is considered the most influental 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, was established in 2008. It serves the translation of studies in humanities into English. [29]
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian major general, 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." [30]
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)The father of official art history was a German named Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68).
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.
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics, and a principal scientist in the Nazi nuclear weapons program during World War II. He published his Umdeutung paper in 1925, a major reinterpretation of old quantum theory. In the subsequent series of papers with Max Born and Pascual Jordan, during the same year, his matrix formulation of quantum mechanics was substantially elaborated. He is known for the uncertainty principle, which he published in 1927. Heisenberg was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the creation of quantum mechanics".
Carl Bosch was a German chemist and engineer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was a pioneer in the field of high-pressure industrial chemistry and founder of IG Farben, at one point the world's largest chemical company.
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, is a distinguished public research university in the city of Göttingen, 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.
The Technical University of Berlin is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first German university to adopt the name "Technische Universität".
The Humboldt University of Berlin is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.
Leipzig University, in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Elector of Saxony and his brother William II, Margrave of Meissen, and originally comprised the four scholastic faculties. Since its inception, the university has engaged in teaching and research for over 600 years without interruption.
Max Theodor Felix von Laue was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.
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.
The University of Hamburg is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System, the Hamburg Colonial Institute, and the Academic College. The main campus is located in the central district of Rotherbaum, with affiliated institutes and research centres distributed around the city-state. Seven Nobel Prize winners and one Wolf Prize winner are affiliated with UHH.
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 number of the DPG's members 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. The main aims are to bring its members and all physicists living in Germany closer together, represent their entirety outwards, as well as foster the exchange of ideas between its members and foreign colleagues. The DPG binds itself and its members to advocate for freedom, tolerance, veracity and dignity in science and to be aware of the fact that the people working in science are responsible to a particularly high extent for the configuration of the overall human activity.
Anastasios Christomanos was one of the most important Greek scientists of the later part of the 19th century. His academic collaborators were some of the most important scientists in the world, including Robert Bunsen, Georg Ludwig Carius, Emil Erlenmeyer and Gustav Kirchhoff. He is the father of modern Greek chemical education. He wrote 73 books and dissertations. His fields of study included: Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry. He helped restructure Greek education. Greek education was in the grasp of Korydalism for over 300 years. With the onset of the industrial revolution, Christomanos and his contemporaries were pioneers of modern education all over the world.