Global InformationList of German inventions and discoveries information
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"What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg. Everything can be traced to this source, but we are bound to bring him homage, … for the bad that his colossal invention has brought about is overshadowed a thousand times by the good with which mankind has been favored."
American writer Mark Twain (1835−1910)[1]
German inventions and discoveries are ideas, objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, in Germany or abroad by a person from Germany (that is, someone born in Germany – including to non-German parents – or born abroad with at least one German parent and who had the majority of their education or career in Germany). Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors, discoverers and engineers, including Carl von Linde, who developed the modern refrigerator;[2] Paul Nipkow and Karl Ferdinand Braun, who laid the foundation of the television with their Nipkow disk and cathode-ray tube (or Braun tube) respectively;[3][4] Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first fully automatic digital computer (Z3) and the first commercial computer (Z4).[5][6] Such German inventors, engineers and industrialists as Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin,[7] Otto Lilienthal, Gottlieb Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Hugo Junkers and Karl Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology. Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun developed the first space rocket at Peenemünde and later on was a prominent member of NASA and developed the Saturn V Moon rocket. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation was pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication.[8] Philipp Reis constructed the first device to transmit a voice via electronic signals and for that the first modern telephone,[9][10]while also coining the term.[11]
Emil Behring, Ferdinand Cohn, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Friedrich Loeffler and Rudolph Virchow were among the key figures in the creation of modern medicine, while Koch and Cohn were also founders of microbiology.[12]
Georgius Agricola gave chemistry it´s modern name. He is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and the founder of geology as a scientific discipline, while Justus von Liebig is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry.[13] Otto Hahn is the father of radiochemistry and discovered nuclear fission, the scientific and technological basis for the utilization of atomic energy.
Johannes Kepler was one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural and modern science[14][15][16] Albert Einstein introduced the special relativity and general relativity theories for light and gravity in 1905 and 1915 respectively. Along with Max Planck, he was instrumental in the creation of modern physics with the introduction of quantum mechanics, in which Werner Heisenberg and Max Born later made major contributions.[17] Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays.[18]
The movable-type printing press was invented by German blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. In 1997, Time Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium.[19] In 1998, the A&E Network ranked Gutenberg as the most influential person of the second millennium on their "Biographies of the Millennium" countdown.[19]
The following is a list of inventions, innovations or discoveries known or generally recognised to be German.
- ^ Childress, Diana (2008). Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7613-4024-9.
- ^ "Carl von Linde". Science History Institute. 1 June 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
- ^ Bellis, Mary (6 April 2017). "Television History - Paul Nipkow". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
- ^ "Pioneers' Page".
- ^ Bianchi, Luigi. "The Great Electromechanical Computers". York University. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "The Zeppelin". U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
- ^ "Historical figures in telecommunications". International Telecommunication Union. 14 January 2004. Archived from the original on 25 April 2011. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
- ^ Coe, Lewis (2006). The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History. McFarland. pp. 16–24. ISBN 9780786426096.
- ^ Turner, Gerard L'Estrange; Weston, Margaret (1983). Nineteenth-century Scientific Instruments. University of California Press. p. 140. ISBN 9780520051607.
- ^ "Ueber Telephonie durch den galvanischen Strom. In: Jahres-Bericht des physikalischen Vereins zu Frankfurt am Main für das Rechnungsjahr 1860-1861, pp. 57-64 by Johann Philipp REIS on Milestones of Science Books".
- ^ Weindling, Paul (1986). "Medicine and Modernization: The Social History of German Health and Medicine". History of Science. 24 (3): 277–301. doi:10.1177/007327538602400302. S2CID 160121976.
- ^ Jackson, Catherine Mary (December 2008). Analysis and Synthesis in Nineteenth-Century Organic Chemistry (PDF) (PhD). University of London. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
- ^ "DPMA | Johannes Kepler".
- ^ "Johannes Kepler: His Life, His Laws and Times | NASA". Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
- ^ "Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You - Timeline - Johannes Kepler".
- ^ Roberts, J. M. (2002). The New Penguin History of the World. Allen Lane. p. 1014. ISBN 978-0-7139-9611-1.
- ^ "The First Nobel Prize". Deutsche Welle. 8 September 2010. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
- ^ a b "Die Gutenbergstadt Mainz". Gutenberg.de. 10 March 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-03-10. Retrieved 8 November 2019.