Science and technology in Germany

Science and technology in Germany has a long and illustrious history, and

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

Foundations

• Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  (DFG)
• Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology
  (BMWi)
• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), promoting international exchange of scientists and students)

National science libraries

• German National Library of Economics (ZWB)
• German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED)
• German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB)

Research organizations

• Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
  (complex systems und lage-scale research)
• Fraunhofer Society (applied research and mission oriented research)
• Leibniz Association (fundamental and applied research)
• Max Planck Society (fundamental research)
• Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik

Prize committees

The

The work of

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.^[13][14]

Chemistry

Justus von Liebig (1803 – 1873) made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry.^[15]

At the start of the 20th century, Germany garnered fourteen of the first thirty-one

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.

Engineering

Germany has been the home of many famous

The physicist and optician

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^[23] 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.

Psychology

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.^[25]

Humanities

Besides natural sciences, German researchers have added much to the development of humanities.

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

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.^[27]

Personality

• 
  Hildegard of Bingen, considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.^[28]
• 
  Georgius Agricola gave chemistry it´s modern name. Generally referred to as the Father of Mineralogy and the founder of geology as a scientific discipline.^[29][30]
• 
  Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, named the most important invention of the second millennium.^[31]
• 
  modern science.^[32][33][34]
• 
  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, founder of modern archaeology,^[35] father of the discipline of art history^[36] and father of Neoclassicism.^[37]
• 
  Alexander von Humboldt, seen as "the father of ecology" and "the father of environmentalism".^[38][39]
• 
  Carl Friedrich Gauss, referred to as one of the most important mathematicians of all time.^[40]
• 
  Robert Koch, one of the fathers of microbiology,^[41] father of medical bacteriology^[42][43] and one of the founders of modern medicine.^[44][45]
• 
  Carl Benz, inventor of the modern car and father of the automobile industry.^[46][47][48]
• 
  Otto Lilienthal, who has been referred to as the "father of aviation"^[49][50][51] or "father of flight".^[52]
• 
  Karl Ferdinand Braun, who has been called one of the fathers of television and of the radio telegraphy and the "great grandfather of every semiconductor ever manufactured".^{[53][54][55][56][57]}
• 
  Fritz Haber invented the Haber–Bosch process. It is estimated that it provides the food production for nearly half of the world's population.^[58][59] Haber has been called one of the most important scientists and chemists in human history.^[60][61][62]
• 
  Albert Einstein, who has been called the greatest physicist of all time and one of the fathers of modern physics.^[63][64]
• 
  Konrad Zuse, inventor of the modern computer.^[65][66]
• 
  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",^[67] the "father of rocket science",^[68] or the "father of the American lunar program".

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Science in Germany.

• German inventors and discoverers
• German inventions and discoveries
• Operation Paperclip
• Technology during World War II
• Körber European Science Prize

Notes

References

• 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)
• English section of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's website
• Germany's science and research landscape
• Articles and dossiers about Research and Technology in Germany, Goethe-Institut
• Audretsch, D. B., Lehmann, E. E., & Schenkenhofer, J. (2018). Internationalization strategies of hidden champions: lessons from Germany. Multinational Business Review.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Science in Germany.

• Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• Research-in-germany.org