Academics From Germany

"Look here, I have succeeded at last in fetching some gold from the sun."

"Heat rays have the same nature as light rays... The invisible heat rays are distinguished from light rays only by the period of or the wave length."

"All heat rays follow the same laws in their propagation, which are known for light rays."

"[I]t will be assumed that perfectly diathermanous bodies are conceivable, that is, such which will absorb none of the incident heat rays of whatever nature these may be, and finally, that a perfect mirror is conceivable, i.e., a body which reflects completely all heat rays."

"In 1854 he... became associated with Bunsen. ...[H]e ...for twenty years ...in connection with Bunsen achieved some of the most important discoveries in the history of physical science."

"Modern physics often advances only by sacrificing some of our traditional philosophical convictions."

"The difficult surface conditions met with when light passes from one medium to another, including such subjects as ellipticity, total reflection, etc., have been critically discussed among others by Neumann (1835) and Rayleigh (1888) but the discrimination between the Fresnel and the Neumann vector was not accomplished without misgiving before the advent of the work of Hertz. It appears... that the elastic theories of light, if Kelvin's gyrostatic adynamic ether be admitted, have not been wholly routed. Nevertheless the great electromagnetic theory of light propounded by Maxwell (1864, 'Treatise,' 1873) has been singularly apt not only in explaining all the phenomena reached by the older theories and in predicting entirely novel results, but in harmoniously uniting as parts of a unique doctrine, both the electric or photographic light vector of Fresnel and Cauchy and the magnetic vector of Neumann and MacCullagh. Its predictions have, moreover, been astonishingly verified by the work of Hertz (1890), and it is to-day acquiring added power in the convection theories of Lorentz (1895) and others."

"The subject of electric oscillation announced in a remarkable paper of Henry in 1842 and threshed out in its main features by Kelvin in 1856, followed by Kirchhoff's treatment of the transmission of oscillations along a wire (1857), has become of discriminating importance between Maxwell's theory of the electric field and the other equally profound theories of an earlier date. These crucial experiments contributed by Hertz (1887, et seq.) showed that electromagnetic waves move with the velocity of light, and like it are capable of being reflected, refracted, brought to interference and polarized. A year later Hertz (1888) worked out the distribution of the vectors in the space surrounding the oscillatory source. ...Some doubt was thrown on the details of Hertz's results by Sarasin and de la Rive's phenomenon of multiple resonance (1890), but this was soon explained away as the necessary result of the occurrence of damped oscillations by Poincaré (1891), by Bjerknes (1891) and others."

"In 1888... Heinrich Hertz succeeded in producing electromagnetic waves (to which he subsequently gave the shorter name of electric waves) standing in free space and gliding over wires; he showed that they could be reflected, refracted, polarized, diffused, and generally followed optical laws just as though they were light waves. This achievement was the first real advance toward the art of wireless telegraphy. As a detector of electric waves at a distance from whence they were emitted, Hertz employed a circlet of wire having an air gap in it of microscopic size; this he termed a "resonator." The distance to which waves could be detected with it was very limited, but it served Hertz's purpose admirably. ... Any theory advanced must conform with Maxwell's conceptions and the experiments of Hertz, but as the fundamental equations by which Maxwell evolved his theory are as broad as they are beautiful, its interpretations by various technicians are widely divergent, and the final solution is rendered all the more difficult when Hertz's work is consulted; for he not only observed electric waves in free space, but waves which traverse the surface of wires as well."

"When a constant electric current flows along a cylindrical wire, its strength is the same at every part of the section of the wire. But if the current is variable, self-induction produces a deviation from this... induction opposes variations of the current in the centre of the wire more strongly than at the circumference, and consequently the current by preference flows along the outer portion of the wire. When the current changes its direction... this deviation increases rapidly with the rate of alternation; and when the current alternates many million times per second, almost the whole of the interior of the wire must, according to theory, appear free from current, and the flow must confine itself to the very skin of the wire. Now in such extreme cases... preference must be given to another conception of the matter which was first presented by Messrs. 0. Heaviside and J. H. Poynting, as the correct interpretation of Maxwell's equations as applied to this case. According to this view, the electric force which determines the current is not propagated in the wire itself, but under all circumstances penetrates from without into the wire, and spreads into the metal with comparative slowness and laws similar to those which govern changes of temperature in a conducting body. ...Inasmuch as I made use of electric waves in wires of exceedingly short period in my experiments on the propagation of electric force, it was natural to test by means of these the correctness of the conclusions deduced. As a matter of fact the theory was found to be confirmed by the experiments..."

"It's of no use whatsoever. This is just an experiment that proves Maestro Maxwell was right—we just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there."

"One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them."

"It is not particularly satisfactory to see equations set forth as direct results of observation and experiment, where we used to get long mathematical deductions as apparent proofs of them. Nevertheless, I believe that we cannot, without deceiving ourselves, extract much more from known facts than is asserted in the papers referred to. If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc."

"Although experimenters had attempted by various means to submit Maxwell's views to a test, the technical difficulties were so great that no success had been achieved. It appeared clearly from Maxwell's equations that no appreciable effects could be anticipated unless dE/dt was very great; and this meant that the electric intensity E would have to vary with extreme rapidity. The simplest means of obtaining a result of this kind would be to produce an oscillating field of electric intensity in which the oscillations were extremely rapid, say, several millions per second. But no mechanical contrivance could yield such rapid vibrations, and... no other methods suggested themselves. ... In 1885 Helmholtz directed the attention of his pupil, Hertz, to the problem. Hertz was one of the most remarkable experimenters of the nineteenth century; he succeeded in at last vanquishing the technical difficulties and in generating by purely electrical means an oscillating electric field of extremely high frequency. Electromagnetic waves of sufficient intensity were thus produced; and after having been sidetracked for a time by a secondary phenomenon whose nature was elucidated by Poincaré, Hertz verified the fact that the waves advanced with the speed of light and indeed possessed all the essential properties of light waves other than those of visibility to the human eye. Thus, as a result of Hertz's experiments, the foundations were laid for the commercial use of wireless and radio; but, more important still, Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light establishing the intimate connection between electricity and optics had been at last vindicated."

"In his obituary for Stern wrote: “Some of Pauli’s great theoretical contributions came from Stern’s suggestions, or rather questions; for example, the theory of magnetism of free electrons in metals.” From and Armin Telling – Pauli’s last two assistants – I have learned that Pauli has also discussed the question of extensively with Stern during his Hamburg time, before the advent of the new quantum mechanics."

""Shall we do it?" "Well, then let's go, we shall do it!" Otto Stern asking, Walther Gerlach answering."

"Erwin with his psi can do Calculations quite a few. But one thing has not been seen: Just what does psi really mean?"

"A simple calculation shows that from the classical theory follows that we should find a broadening of the beam with the maximum intensity on the place of the beam without field. However, from the quantum theory follows that we should find there no intensity at all, and deflected molecules on both sides. The beam should split up in two beams corresponding to the two orientations of the magnet. The experiment decided in favor of the quantum theory."

"The rigour of science requires that we distinguish well the undraped figure of Nature itself from the gay-coloured vesture with which we clothe her at our pleasure."

"If the idea of physical reality had ceased to be purely atomic, it still remained for the time being purely mechanistic; people still tried to explain all events as the motion of inert masses; indeed no other way of looking at things seemed conceivable. Then came the great change, which will be associated for all time with the names of Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Hertz."

"Heinrich Hertz seemed to be predestined to open up to mankind many of the secrets which nature has hitherto concealed from us; but all these hopes were frustrated by the malignant disease which, creeping slowly but surely on, robbed us of this precious life and of the achievements which it promised."

"As a boy he won the appreciation of his parents and teachers by his high moral character. Already his pursuits showed his natural inclinations. While still attending school he worked of his own accord at the bench and lathe, on Sundays he attended the Trade School to practise geometrical drawing, and with the simplest appliances he constructed serviceable optical and mechanical instruments. ...It is in young men of unusual capacity that one most frequently observes [his] sort of timid modesty. ...their strength must be tried by some practical test before they can secure the self-reliance requisite for their difficult task. And even in later years men of great ability are the less content with their own achievements the higher their capacity and ideals. The most gifted attain the highest and truest success because they are most keenly alive to the presence of imperfection and most unwearied in removing it. ...[A]s he grew in knowledge he grew in the conviction that only in scientific work could he find enduring satisfaction."

"Um es vorwegzunehmen: Jene dargelegte 'kultische Dominanz' der Frau ist kein Matriarchat oder Feminat gewesen; zu der Sozialstruktur, die wir heute 'Patriarchat' nennen, hat es niemals ein weibliches Pendant gegeben. [...] Nichtsdestoweniger sind einige der Befunde, worauf die alten Ethnologen und Soziologen (und Sozialisten) ihre falschen weltumspannenden Theoreme aufbauten, tatsächlich wahr und in der Realität bei einigen Naturvölkern heute noch vorfindbar, nur müssen sie besser gedeutet werden als vordem, nämlich objektiver. Und insofern sollte eher von maternalen denn von matriachalen Kulturelementen gesprochen werden, wenn man solch kulturell-soziale Zusammenhänge unter globalem Aspekt anspricht. [...] Jedenfalls zählen zu den kulturellen Zügen, um die es hier geht, zusammengefaßt etwa folgende, die heute nurmehr selten irgendwo alle gleichzeitig auftreten: In der Erbfolgereglung wird die mütterliche Linie gewählt, Kinder gehören stets zur Mutterseite. Eigentum, gelegentlich auch Rechte werden in der mütterlichen Linie vererbt (entweder von der Mutter auf die Tochter oder vom Mutterbruder auf den Schwestersohn). Es herrscht sog. matrilokale Wohnfolge, d. h. der Ehemann tritt in die Sippe der Frau ein und wohnt dort. Bei beiden Geschlechtern herrscht voreheliche sexuelle Ungebundenheit, bei den Mädchen weitgehende Freiheit in der Gattenwahl und große Selbständigkeit in der Ehe mit leichter Scheidungsmöglichkeit für die Frau. Die weibliche Stellung in Kult und Religion ist relevanter als die der Männer. Der biologische Vater gilt als mit seinen Kindern nicht verwandt; seine Stelle nimmt, was Erziehung und Fürsorge betrifft, der Mutterbruder ein: Er ist der soziale Vater für alle Kinder seiner Schwester, auch wenn diese von verschiedenen Vätern stammen. [...] Das ganze Denkmuster, das hier nur extrem knapp umrissen wird, gibt im Grunde keinen Hinweis darauf, daß die betreffenden Menschen die Zusammenhänge zwischen Zeugung und Geburt gekannt hätten."

"Die Feste der frühen Epochen waren stark sexuell betont. Ihr Höhepunkt war oft das, was man heute Gruppensex nennt und als sozial rein negativ einstuft. Allerdings vermag Sexualität tatsächlich soziale Spannungen abzubauen, und sie 'befriedigt' nicht nur, sie befriedet auch. Der Mensch ist anthropologisch auf viel mehr Sexualkontakte angelegt, als unsere rigide Kultur uns erlaubt, ja, nur als 'menschenwürdig' hinstellt. Die als sogenannte unnennbare Unsittlichkeit abqualifizierten Sexualbräuche vieler Naturvölker wurden von den weißen Kolonialherren oft als willkommene Vorwände instrumentalisiert, um die betreffenden Stämme guten Gewissens zu drangsalieren und zu dezimieren. Künder des Islam im Orient und Vertreter des Konfuzianismus in China bemühten sich ihrerseits ebenso wie Weiße zwecks christlicher Mission, sexuelle Riten möglichst total auszurotten, wo immer sie noch auf sie trafen: Was vordem Kult war, wurde zur Unzucht umdefiniert. Die Praxis hat bei den meisten Naturvölkern dazu geführt, daß die betreffenden Rituale erloschen. Vergleichbare Sitten sind in der Frühzeit auf dieselbe Art verschwunden, zwar nicht aus denselben, aber aus ähnlich strukturierten Gründen, denn in allen patriarchalischen Ethnien gelten orgiastische Riten als sozialschädlich."

"Wo die "Beleidigung sittlichen Gefühls", wo "moralische Begriffe" höher gestellt werden als die eigene, auf rationaler Basis erarbeitete Strafrechtstheorie, dort darf man mit voller Berechtigung von einem totalen Sieg des Vorurteils über die Vernunft sprechen."

"Als Ursachen für die so oder so vorgefundene Bewertung [einer bestimmten] Sexualität [...] lassen sich generell folgende ausmachen: Die jeweilige Stammestradition mit ihren Mythen, Ursprungs- und Fruchtbarkeitssagen und ferner die kulturellen Charakteristika der fraglichen Gruppe, nun aber geographisch großräumiger betrachtet und im Zusammenhang mit Rasse, Sprache (Sprachfamilie), Erbschaftsverhältnissen (Vater- oder Mutterrecht) sowie ihren ökonomischen und ökologischen Besonderheiten gesehen. Religion, wirtschaftliche Verhältnisse, natürliche Ressourcen sowie das ökologische Umfeld insgesamt (auch dessen Veränderungen im Zeitablauf!) erweisen sich überall als direkt aufeinander bezogen."

"Alle Menschen gehören als Gattung zu den gruppenhaft lebenden Geschöpfen, was lebensgefährdende innerartliche Aggression von vornherein ausschließt. Mit anderen Worten: Hätten schon in der Vergangenheit unserer Spezies solch schwere Konflikte [...] geherrscht wie während der letzten rund viereinhalb Jahrtausende und noch gegenwärtig, dann wären wir niemals zu Menschen geworden, sondern längst vorher ausgestorben. Denn Wesen, die als einzelne Individuen im Vergleich zu den vielen Raubtieren, die ihnen nachstellen, derart schwach und hilflos sind wie wir, brauchen Deckung und Rückhalt von anderen der gleichen Art, um überleben zu können. Wir haben weder Klauen noch Reißzähne, noch genug Muskelkraft, um allein unseren großen Freßfeinden erfolgreich Widerstand zu leisten, doch in der Gruppe gelingt es, wenn auch nie ohne selbstlose Opfer und Mut. In jener fernen Frühzeit, als unsere vormenschlichen Ahnen anfingen, in Trupps zu leben, um sich bei Gefahr zusammenzuschließen und einander beizustehen, haben sie ein Verhalten entwickelt, das man 'soziale Intelligenz' nennt: Die Fähigkeit, mit Angehörigen der eigenen Gattung zusammenzuwirken, um das Gedeihen aller zu gewährleisten. Dies Potential haben wir auch jetzt noch, aber es erweist sich als nachhaltig gestört. [...] Es muß sich um eine friedliche Welt gehandelt haben, weil die frühen Siedlungen zumeist nicht gegen menschliche Feinde gesichert sind. Für ein, zwei Jahrtausende [nach der letzten Eiszeit] haben Menschen in solchen Lebensverhältnissen offenbar ein glückliches Dasein verbracht."

"The wise Theophrastus lived ninety years, and when he came to die, he complained against Nature because "she has given man so little time to live, and because an honest fellow must die at the very moment when he has begun to comprehend a little the art of life." But — let me remark in passing — I am very far from believing that Theophrastus made the foolish speech which is imputed to him. The people around his bed did not exactly understand what he said, and then some schoolmaster came along, a good while after, and tried to make sense of it, and made nonsense. I would bet that Theophrastus meant neither more nor less than this; that he regretted he had not been wise enough, sixty or seventy years before, to see that he might have saved himself the trouble of studying, as art and science, what Nature would have taught him far better and more surely, without study, if he had had the simplicity of mind to heed her instruction. It was not innocent Nature but his own folly that he blamed, as most men are wont to do in his case; although they might as well let it alone; for what is the use of repentance when one has time left for amendment?"

"I said Philosophy might the rather maintain its place, as healing art for the soul, because then, the well would know that they had nothing to do with it. But as all arts love to make themselves more important than they are, so this art too has found means to impose itself upon all the world as indispensable. Like its sister art, which ministers to the body, it will not allow any one to be entirely well."

"Nichts halb zu thun ist edler Geister Art."

"Ein Wahn, der mich beglückt, Ist eine Wahrheit werth, die mich zu Boden drückt."

"Noch einmahl sattelt mir den Hippogryfen, ihr Musen, Zum Ritt ins alte romantische Land!"

"What I am and what I know I owe to my father’s library and to my mother’s salon."

"Science is the last step in man's mental development and it may be regarded as the highest and most characteristic attainment of human culture."

"I studied your treatise thoroughly and with very much interest and admired, above all, how securely you master the essence of relativity theory. I made brief comments in the margin where I was not completely in agreement. E.g., I could not accept your opinion about the Kant-Newton relationship with reference to space and time. Newton’s theory requires an absolute (objective) space in order to be able to attribute real meaning to acceleration, which Kant does not seem to have recognized."

"I very much believe in the influence of magic and the subconscious on the literary process...I think that magic has to do with the subconscious, much as the ancient sorcerers believed. The identification of man with his material surroundings and his active participation in that world are detailed in the books of Carlos Castañeda, for example, as well as, on a different level, with the books of sociologists like Lévy-Bruhl and Ernest Cassirer, or Lévi-Strauss. The magical identification has a lot to do with literature, this alternate way of viewing the world."

"The facts of science always imply a theoretical, which means a symbolic, element."

"1919...Henri Bergson, Karl Barth, Ernst Cassirer, Havelock Ellis, Karl Jaspers, John Maynard Keynes, Rudolf Steiner—indelible figures—were all active in their various spheres."

"No former age was ever in such a favorable position with regard to the sources of our knowledge of human nature. Psychology, ethnology, anthropology, and history have amassed an astonishingly rich and constantly increasing body of facts. Our technical instruments for observation and experimentation have been immensely improved, and our analyses have become sharper and more penetrating. We appear, nevertheless, not yet to have found a method for the mastery and organization of this material.... Unless we succeed in finding a clue of Ariadne to lead us out of this labyrinth, we can have no real insight into the general character of human culture; we shall remain lost in a mass of disconnected and disintegrated data which seem to lack all conceptual unity."

"Love and knowledge have one and the same goal, for both strive to overcome the separation in the elements of being and return to the point of their original unity.… To know an object means to negate the distance between it and consciousness; it means, in a certain sense, to become one with the object: cognitio nihil est aliud, quam Coitio quaedam cum suo cognobili. [Knowledge is nothing else than a kind of union with what is known.]"

"Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging."

"The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty."

"If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will."

"Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also. And he who hinders this, —what character does he assume towards his age and posterity? Louder than with a thousand voices, by his actions he proclaims into the deafened ear of the world present and to come —"As long as I live at least, the men around me shall not become wiser or better; — for in their progress I too, notwithstanding all my efforts to the contrary, should be dragged forward in some direction; and this I detest I will not become more enlightened, — I will not become nobler. Darkness and perversion are my elements, and I will summon all my powers together that I may not be dislodged from them.""

"“Whether there can be love without esteem?” Oh yes, thou dear, pure one! Love is of many kinds. Rousseau proves that by his reasoning and still better by his example. La pauvre Maman and Madame N____ love in very different fashions. But I believe there are many kinds of love which do not appear in Rousseau’s life. You are very right in saying that no true and enduring love can exist without cordial esteem; that every other draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble soul. One word about pietism. Pietists place religion chiefly in externals; in acts of worship performed mechanically, without aim, as bond-service to god; in orthodoxy of opinion; and they have this among other characteristic marks, that they give themselves more solicitude about other’s piety than their own. It is not right to hate these men,-we should hate no one, but to me they are very contemptible, for their character implies the most deplorable emptiness of the head, and the most sorrowful perversion of the heart. Such my dear friend never can be; she cannot become such, even were it possible-which it is not-that her character were perverted; she can never become such, her nature has too much reality in it. You trust in Providence, your anticipation of a future life, are wise, and Christian. I hope, I may venture to speak of myself, that no one will take me to be a pietist or stiff formalist, but I know no feeling more thoroughly interwoven with my soul than these are."

"The infinitely smallest part of space is always a space, something endowed with continuity, not at all a mere point or the boundary between specified places in space."

"Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; — all but the possibility of improvement."

"The correct relationship between the higher and lower classes, the appropriate mutual interaction between the two is, as such, the true underlying support on which the improvement of the human species rests. The higher classes constitute the mind of the single large whole of humanity; the lower classes constitute its limbs; the former are the thinking and designing [Entwerfende] part, the latter the executive part."

"I posit myself as rational, that is, as free. In doing so I have the representation of freedom. In the same undivided act I posit other free beings. Hence, I describe through my power of imagination a sphere of freedom, which these many separate beings divide amongst themselves. I do not ascribe to myself all the freedom which I have posited, because I must also posit other free beings, and must ascribe part of it to them. Thus, in appropriating freedom to myself, I at the same time restrict myself, by leaving freedom to others."

"The conception of Rights involves that when men are to live in a community, each must so restrict his freedom as to permit the coexistence of the freedom of all others. But it does not involve that this particular person, A, is to restrict his freedom by the freedom of those particular persons, B, C, and D. That it has happened so that I, A, must conform myself particularly to the freedom of these, B, C, and D, of all other men, is purely the result of my living together with them; and I so live with them, simply by my free-will, not because there is an obligation for me to do so."