Germany Science And Technology

Imagining technology without the Germans is like making cake without the flour. Foundational discoveries by inventors, physicists, chemists, and biologists have profoundly altered world history in unimaginable ways. Around 1455, a humble, if mischievous, goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg printed 180 copies of the Bible and launched a new epoch of human intellectual development. The movable type printing press that Gutenberg developed over 15 years facilitated the flow of information that gave rise to ideological revolutions from Martin Luther’s 95 Theses to the Mercedes-Benz Maybach 62.

The major contributions of German scientists after Gutenberg, produced a legacy of energy research that continues to influence technology. In 1650, Otto von Güricke’s vacuum pump invention laid the groundwork formodern thermodynamics. A few decades later, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit created one of the first systems for measuring temperature, a system still in place in the Unites States. With the Age of Enlightenment, Alexander von Humboldt won international acclaim for laying the groundwork for the fields of physical geography and meteorology as well as producing one of earliest scientific accounts of the New World. Physics took center stage during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the German academy. Drawing from Humboldt’s geophysical work, Hermann von Helmholtz worked in chemical thermodynamics and eventually pioneered the modern field of electrodynamics. Helmholtz’s star student, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovered the existence of electromagnetic waves, paving the way for the development of modern telecommunications technology. The international unit for measuring frequency was later named after him. In the related field of electromagnetic radiation, the discovery of X-rays earned Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Two decades later, another Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Einstein for his Special Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s research reacted to and drew from legendary Germany physicist, Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory and winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics. In fact, it was Planck who recognized the significance of the then-unknown Einstein’s early work on relativity around the turn of the century. Otto Hahn, a member of the Max Planck Society, is credited as the founder of the atomic age, conducting the first successful nuclear fission experiments in 1938. By the 1960s, nuclear energy was in regular use throughout the country.

Today, a strong emphasis on renewable energy dominates the scientific dialogue in Germany. Along with the other countries of the European Union, Germany set a goal in 1997 that 12% of its energy would be renewable by 2010. The plan depended on an increasing use of hydroelectric, solar, and wind power. Germany surpassed the target in 2007 with 14% renewable resources and set out to reach 27% by 2020. Currently, Germany ranks first in the use of wind power and is nearly tied with Japan for the use of solar energy. Recycling has also become a chief priority, and practically everything can be recycled since the inauguration the nationally sanctioned Grüne Punkt system.