Jürgen Renn


Jürgen Renn is a German historian of science, and since 2022 Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena.

Short biography

Renn studied physics at the Free University of Berlin and at the Sapienza University of Rome. In 1987 he received his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Technische Universität Berlin.
Between 1986 and 1992 he worked as co-editor of the "Collected Papers of Albert Einstein" at Boston University. Between 1991 and 1996 he co-directed with Peter Damerow the "Arbeitsstelle Albert Einstein" at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.
In 1993/94 he was visiting professor at Tel Aviv University and at the ETH Zurich. Since its founding in 1994 Renn was a Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
In 2022, he was appointed Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, which is based on a concept that emerged from his research on the Anthropocene conducted jointly with a global research network.
Renn holds an honorary professorship for the history of science at the Humboldt University of Berlin and at the Free University of Berlin. Since 1998 he is Adjunct Professor for philosophy and physics at Boston University. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the International Academy for the History of Science, and serves on the executive boards of Berlin's German Universities Excellence Initiative 'Topoi' and the Berliner Antike-Kolleg.
His writings include The Formative Years of Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's Princeton Lectures and The Road to Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's "The Foundation of General Relativity", Featuring the Original Manuscript of Einstein's Masterpiece, and Einstein on Einstein: Autobiographical and Scientific Reflections.

Scholarly activities

Research and fields of study

Renn's research projects focus on long-term developments of knowledge while taking into account processes of globalization. His research projects have dealt with the historical development of mechanics from antiquity until the 20th century. In this context Renn also investigates the origins of mechanics in China, the transformation of ancient knowledge, and the exchange of knowledge between Europe and China in the early modern period. A main focus of Renn's research is the history of modern physics, investigating the origin and development of general theory of relativity, and of quantum theory in particular. Renn has written about the Anthropocene in relation to the history of knowledge and science.

Digitalization and open access

Since the emergence of the World Wide Web, Renn has advocated for free access to historical sources. In 1992 he launched an initiative with Peter Damerow and Paolo Galluzzi to create a freely accessible “Galileo-Einstein Electronic Archive” online. With support from the European Community, he later founded the ECHO-Initiative to promote the study of historical sources online. Renn is one of the initiators of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities and launched the publishing platform Edition Open Access together with other colleagues from the Max Planck Society.

Exhibitions

Renn has organized several exhibitions in the area of the history of science, technology, and culture. He has co-organized several exhibitions, including:

Awards and fellowships

Selected publications

Books

The Einsteinian Revolution: The Historical Roots of His Breakthroughs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023.The Road to Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's "The Foundation of General Relativity". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
  • . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Wissensgeschichte der Architektur. Vol. 1: ; vol. 2: ; vol. 3: . Studies 3, 4, 5: Max Planck Research Library in the History and Development of Knowledge. Berlin, Edition Open Access, 2014.
  • . Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2012.
  • . Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2012
  • . Wien: Picus Verlag, 2007.
  • , 4 Vols. : vol. 1 and 2, vol. 3, vol. 4. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007.
  • .. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007.
  • . 3 Vols. Berlin: Wiley-VCH, 2006
  • . Berlin: Wiley-VCH, 2006.

Articles and book chapters

  • in Centaurus 57, 2015: 35–53.
  • "Einstein’s Copernican Revolution," in, edited by Michel Janssen und Christoph Lehner, 38–71. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
  • in Rechtsgeschichte/Legal History 2014 :52–60.
  • "Beyond Editions: Historical Sources in the Digital Age," in, edited by Michael Stolz, and Yen-Chun Chen, 9–28. editio / Beihefte 38. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014
  • "Learning from Kushim about the Origin of Writing and Farming," in, edited by Katrin Klingan, Ashkan Sepahvand, Christoph Rosol und Bernd M. Scherer, 241–259. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.
  • "Schrödinger and the Genesis of Wave Mechanics," in, edited by Wolfgang L. Reiter und Jakob Yngvason, 9–36. Zurich: European Mathematical Society, 2013.
  • "The Emergence of Statistical Mechanics," in, edited by Jed Z. Buchwald und Robert Fox, 765–788. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • "The Transformation of Ancient Mechanics into a Mechanistic World View," in, edited by Georg Toepfer und Hartmut Böhme, 243–267., Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.

Video