Science and technology in Germany


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. 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. Germany is currently the nation with the 3rd most Nobel Prize winners, 115.
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. After the war, because so many scientific researchers' and teachers' careers had been ended either by Nazi Germany which started a brain drain, the denazification process, the American Operation Paperclip and Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim which exacerbated the brain drain in post-war Germany, 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."
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. Germany was declared the most innovative country in the world in the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index and was ranked 11th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.

Institutions

The Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities is an association of the eight largest academies of sciences in Germany.
The 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.
The is a supreme authority of the Federal Republic of Germany for science and technology. The headquarter of the Federal Ministry is located in Bonn, the second office in Berlin. It was founded in 1972 as Federal Ministry of Research and Technology to promote basic research, applied research and technological development.
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action

Foundations

National science libraries

Research organizations

Prize committees

Scientific fields

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 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.

Scientific Revolution

Johannes Kepler was one of the originators of the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. He was an astronomer, physicist, mathematician and natural philosopher He advocated the idea of a heliocentric model of the Solar System, which can be traced back to the theories of the ancient Greek astronomers Aristarchus of Samos and Seleucus of Seleucia, as well as to the 16th-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, whose main work about the heliocentric model was first published by Johannes Petreius and likely the polymath Johannes Schöner in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg in 1543. In March 1600, Kepler became assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia. After Brahe's death in October of the next year, Kepler succeeded him as imperial mathematician and court astronomer.
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. He made optics to a subject of scientific investigation and confirmed the discoveries made with the telescope by his Italian 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. Kepler also made the invention of the valveless gear pump, because a mine owner needed a device to pump water out of his mine.

[|Physics]

file:Schwarzschild.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Karl Schwarzschild
Otto von Guericke was a scientist, inventor, mathematician and physicist from Magdeburg. He is best known for his experiments on air pressure using the Magdeburg hemispheres. With the invention of the vacuum pump he laid the foundation of vacuum technology.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was a physicist and inventor of measuring instruments from Danzig. The temperature unit degrees Fahrenheit was named after him.
Gustav Kirchhoff was a physicist from Königsberg who made a particular contribution to the study of electricity. Today, Kirchhoff is best known for Kirchhoff's circuit laws, and for introducing the concept of a black body, which contributed to the emergence of quantum mechanics. However, Kirchhoff's circuit laws were discovered as early as 1833 by Carl Friedrich Gauss during his experiments on electricity. With Robert Bunsen he developed flame spectroscopy in 1859, which can be used to detect chemical elements with high specificity. Bunsen was a chemist from Göttingen, and together with Kirchhoff discovered 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, best known for developing the theory of relativity, and Max Planck, he is known for the Planck constant, was crucial to the foundation of modern physics, which Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger developed further. They were preceded by such key physicists as Joseph von Fraunhofer, who discovered the Fraunhofer lines in spectroscopy, and Hermann von Helmholtz, among others. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895, an accomplishment that made him the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 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". Mathematical aerodynamics was developed in Germany, especially by Ludwig Prandtl.
Karl Schwarzschild was an astrophysicist from Frankfurt am Main. He was professor and director of the Göttingen Observatory from 1901 to 1909. There he was able to work together with scientists like David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. Schwarzschild works on relativity provided the first exact solutions to the field equations of Albert Einstein's general relativity – one for an uncharged, non-rotating spherically symmetric body and one for a static isotropic void around a solid body. Schwarzschild did some fundamental works on classical black holes. This is why some properties of black holes got their name, namely the Schwarzschild metric and the Schwarzschild radius. The center of a non-rotating, uncharged black hole is called the Schwarzschild singularity.
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.

Deutsche Physik

The so-called 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 and the German-Hungarian physicist Philipp Lenard. Notably, the latter labeled Albert Einstein's contributions to science as Jewish physics.

Chemistry

Georgius Agricola gave chemistry its modern name. He is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and as the founder of geology as a scientific discipline.
Justus von Liebig made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is one of the principal founders of organic chemistry.
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.
Otto Hahn was 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.

Engineering

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 press in Europe; Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first electronic computer. German inventors, engineers and industrialists such as Zeppelin, Siemens, Daimler, Otto, Wankel, Von Braun and Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology including the beginnings of space travel. The engineer Otto Lilienthal laid some of the fundamentals for the science of aviation.
The physicist and optician Ernst Abbe founded in the 19th century together with the entrepreneurs Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott 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. These enterprises are very successful worldwide up to present time.
The engineer Rudolf Diesel 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. After 1893, he succeeded in building such an engine in a laboratory at the Augsburg Machine Factory. Through his patents registered in many countries and his public relations work, he gave his name to the engine and the associated Diesel fuel.
In the 1930s the electrical engineers Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll developed at the "Technische Hochschule zu Berlin" the first electron microscope.
Manfred von Ardenne 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.

Biological and earth sciences

file:Haeckel Stephoidea.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Radiolarians: Picture plate Nr. 71 from Kunstformen der Natur, 1899 by Ernst Haeckel
Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann 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 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. Wladimir Köppen 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. The Frankfurt surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist Anton de Bary laid one of the fundamentals of the plant pathology and was one of the discoverer of the symbiosis of organisms.
Ernst Haeckel 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, an international bestseller and a book that would go on to influence the Art Nouveau. But Haeckel was also a promoter of scientific racism and embraced the idea of Social Darwinism.
Alfred Wegener, 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.

Psychology

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.
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. 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.

Humanities

Besides natural sciences, German researchers have added much to the development of humanities.
Albertus Magnus was a polymath, philosopher, lawyer, natural scientist, theologian, Dominican and Bishop of Regensburg. His great, diverse knowledge earned him the name Magnus, the title of Doctor of the Church and the honorary title of doctor universalis.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist, "the prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology". 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, 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 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. Kant is best known for the categorical imperative, the fundamental principle of moral action from his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
While Kant was one of the first philosopher of German idealism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 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,, was established in 2008; it serves the translation of studies of humanities into English.

Warfare

Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian, army reformer, military scientist and ethicist. Clausewitz became known through his unfinished major work, 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."
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". 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 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.

Nobel Prizes

  1. Ferenc Krausz, born in Hungary, Physics, 2023
  2. Svante Pääbo, born in Sweden, Physiology or Medicine, 2022
  3. Benjamin List, Chemistry, 2021
  4. Klaus Hasselmann, Physics, 2021
  5. Emmanuelle Charpentier*, born in France, Chemistry, 2020
  6. Reinhard Genzel, Physics, 2020
  7. John B. Goodenough*, Chemistry, 2019
  8. Joachim Frank*, Chemistry, 2017
  9. Rainer Weiss*, Physics, 2017
  10. Stefan Hell, born in Romania, Chemistry, 2014
  11. Thomas C. Südhof, Physiology or Medicine, 2013
  12. Herta Müller, born in Romania, Literature, 2009
  13. Harald zur Hausen, Physiology or Medicine, 2008
  14. Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry, 2007
  15. Peter Grünberg, born in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic, Physics, 2007
  16. Theodor W. Hänsch, Physics, 2005
  17. Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics, 2001
  18. Herbert Kroemer, Physics, 2000
  19. Günter Blobel*, Physiology or Medicine, 1999
  20. Günter Grass, born in Free City of Danzig, now Poland, Literature, 1999
  21. Horst L. Störmer, Physics, 1998
  22. Paul J. Crutzen, Chemistry, 1995
  23. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Physiology or Medicine, 1995
  24. Reinhard Selten, Economics, 1994
  25. Bert Sakmann, Physiology or Medicine, 1991
  26. Erwin Neher, Physiology or Medicine, 1991
  27. Hans G. Dehmelt*, Physics, 1989
  28. Wolfgang Paul, Physics, 1989
  29. Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988
  30. Robert Huber, Chemistry, 1988
  31. Hartmut Michel, Chemistry, 1988
  32. Jack Steinberger*, Physics, 1988
  33. J. Georg Bednorz, Physics, 1987
  34. John Polanyi*, Chemistry, 1986
  35. Ernst Ruska, Physics, 1986
  36. Gerd Binnig, Physics, 1986
  37. Klaus von Klitzing, Physics, 1985
  38. Georges J.F. Köhler*, Physiology or Medicine, 1984
  39. Georg Wittig, Chemistry, 1979
  40. Arno Penzias*, Physics, 1978
  41. Henry Kissinger*, Peace, 1978
  42. Ernst Otto Fischer, Chemistry, 1973
  43. Karl von Frisch, born in Austria-Hungary, now Austria, Physiology or Medicine, 1973
  44. Heinrich Böll, Literature, 1972
  45. Gerhard Herzberg*, Chemistry, 1971
  46. Willy Brandt, Peace, 1971
  47. Bernard Katz*, Physiology or Medicine, 1970
  48. Max Delbrück*, Physiology or Medicine, 1969
  49. Manfred Eigen, Chemistry, 1967
  50. Hans Bethe*, Physics, 1967
  51. Nelly Sachs*, Literature, 1966
  52. Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, Physiology or Medicine, 1964
  53. Konrad Bloch*, Physiology or Medicine, 1964
  54. Karl Ziegler, Chemistry, 1963
  55. Maria Goeppert-Mayer*, Physics, 1963
  56. J. Hans D. Jensen, Physics, 1963
  57. Rudolf Mössbauer, Physics, 1961
  58. Werner Forssmann, Physiology or Medicine, 1956
  59. Polykarp Kusch*, Physics, 1955
  60. Max Born*, Physics, 1954
  61. Walther Bothe, Physics, 1954
  62. Hermann Staudinger, Chemistry, 1953
  63. Fritz Albert Lipmann*, Physiology or Medicine, 1953
  64. Hans Adolf Krebs*, Physiology or Medicine, 1953
  65. Albert Schweitzer*, Peace, 1952
  66. Otto Diels, Chemistry, 1950
  67. Kurt Alder, Chemistry, 1950
  68. Hermann Hesse*, Literature, 1946
  69. Ernst Boris Chain*, Physiology or Medicine, 1945
  70. Otto Hahn, Chemistry, 1944
  71. Otto Stern*, Physics, 1943
  72. Adolf Butenandt, Chemistry, 1939
  73. Gerhard Domagk, Physiology or Medicine, 1939
  74. Richard Kuhn, born in Austria-Hungary, now Austria, Chemistry, 1938
  75. Otto Loewi*, Physiology or Medicine, 1936
  76. Carl von Ossietzky, Peace, 1935
  77. Hans Spemann, Physiology or Medicine, 1935
  78. Werner Karl Heisenberg, Physics, 1932
  79. Otto Heinrich Warburg, Physiology or Medicine, 1931
  80. Carl Bosch, Chemistry, 1931
  81. Friedrich Bergius, Chemistry, 1931
  82. Hans Fischer, Chemistry, 1930
  83. Thomas Mann, Literature, 1929
  84. Hans von Euler-Chelpin*, Chemistry, 1929
  85. Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, Chemistry, 1928
  86. Ludwig Quidde, Peace, 1927
  87. Heinrich Otto Wieland, Chemistry, 1927
  88. Gustav Stresemann, Peace, 1926
  89. James Franck, Physics, 1925
  90. Gustav Ludwig Hertz, Physics, 1925
  91. Otto Fritz Meyerhof, Physiology or Medicine, 1922
  92. Albert Einstein, Physics, 1921
  93. Walther Nernst, Chemistry, 1920
  94. Johannes Stark, Physics, 1919
  95. Fritz Haber, Chemistry, 1918
  96. Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, Physics, 1918
  97. Richard Willstätter, Chemistry, 1915
  98. Max von Laue, Physics, 1914
  99. Gerhart Hauptmann, born in Prussia, now Poland, Literature, 1912
  100. Wilhelm Wien, Physics, 1911
  101. Otto Wallach, Chemistry, 1910
  102. Albrecht Kossel, Physiology or Medicine, 1910
  103. Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse, Literature, 1910
  104. Karl Ferdinand Braun, Physics, 1909
  105. Wilhelm Ostwald, born in Russia, now Latvia, Chemistry, 1909
  106. Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Literature, 1908
  107. Paul Ehrlich, Physiology or Medicine, 1908
  108. Eduard Buchner, Chemistry, 1907
  109. Robert Koch, Physiology or Medicine, 1905
  110. Philipp Lenard, born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire, now Slovakia, Physics, 1905
  111. Adolf von Baeyer, Chemistry, 1905
  112. Hermann Emil Fischer, Chemistry, 1902
  113. Theodor Mommsen, born in Duchy of Schleswig, Literature, 1902
  114. Emil Adolf von Behring, Physiology or Medicine, 1901
  115. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Physics, 1901