yes, the german scientist were extremly advanced in a small handfull of fields (rocketry, jet fighters, first helicopters), but so were the allies (radar, atomic bomb). In a deal that goes back to 1949, the federal government shares the costs of the research organizations with the Lnder. Established since the Middle Ages, the vocational system is a combination of classroom and business, theory and practice, learning and working. Oppenheimer, Dirac, Fermi and Teller all studied in Gottengen. High profile green innovation projects. picture alliance / Sebastian Gollnow/dpa. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist, "the prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology". History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people interested in the history and origins of science and mathematics. A time-recording scheme might make sense for someone in clerical work, but it doesnt help a scientist. Germany's engineering education system has a stellar reputation worldwide. rev2023.1.17.43168. I know that the Soviet education system (especially towards the mid 1900s) was excellent - Stalin, despite some scientific quirkiness, had valued scientific research and advancement, even if only for the advancement of the Soviets' reputation during the Cold War, and adjusted the education system accordingly from secondary school forward to groom scientists. Cars account for almost three-quarters of the kilometres that people travel in Germany. What makes Germany a super innovator? Germany is at the forefront of Engineering. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg are also crammed with lakes -- there's even a hiking trail connecting all 66 lakes in Brandenburg. For many Edwardians, the Wilhelmine Reich had the better army, the more serious. But it also has a weakness. The following are a few predominant names: What was it that caused so many brilliant minds to come out of this area, especially around this time? Even the most deserted villages got their Volksschule. In the DDR, no one got their PhD without an accompanying certificate in the study of MarxismLeninism; Merkels dissertation for that subject, What is the socialist lifestyle?, was accepted with the lowest passing grade. By contrast, the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR) centralized research and kept it under tight control. Image:REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke, .chakra .wef-1vg6q84{font-weight:700;}Senior Writer, Formative Content. In other words, there are firm whys and wherefores that make Germany a hosting country of thousands international PhD students every year. ISSN 1476-4687 (online) In comparison, in the UK, only people who need medical assistance are being tested and as a result the UK's case fatality rate is much higher, at 4.8%. The Max Planck Society, founded in 1948, now runs 81 basic-research institutes whose directors are given extraordinary budgets and free rein to tread their own paths. Literature 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. There are high-speed ICE trains linking major towns and cities at up to 300 kph. How could magic slowly be destroying the world? Vascular biologist Holger Gerhardt left a permanent post at the Crick Institute in London to join the Berlin Institute of Health initiative in 2014. Germany now ranks above the United States for the percentage of papers it publishes among the top 10% most highly cited. Each day when not travelling, the chancellor goes home to her flat near the Humboldt University to spend what is left of the evening with her chemist husband. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Nature (Nature) The Nazis were not inventive, the Germans were. But scientists are generally confident that things will continue to improve steadily. My reasons for concern relate to the political conditions under which universities and research organizations will have to operate in the 2020s. We can fall prey to hindsight bias(we always knew how great the german education system was!) AND we have a ton of new craft breweries. 3. Only 0.93% of females aged 15-19 have no education. Pursuing your under-graduation in Germany would give you an opportunity to learn German. Decisions and changes happen slowly, thanks to the layers of bureaucracy between the federal and Lnder governments. There's also a self-reinforcing cycle to these things. Responsibility on education issues in Germany is shared amongst Lnders and the Federation (which has a minor role). As per usual, countries in East Asia and Europe dominated the highest spots in the rankings. Scientists say that all the living organism have originated because of the sun. 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.[13]. We don't care. Rather than having to learn everything from scratch, she enjoyed a seamless collaboration with a local behavioural lab, which provided advice, equipment and technical support. But cities need these charging stations too: in car parks, for example. Cookie Notice Browsing through Charles Enz biography of Wolfgang Pauli, I got the impression that he had some excellent teachers but didn't need much education as he had mastered the whole physics curriculum soon after entering university. This is a huge benefit, one that allows you to only focus on living costs, like accommodation, food, transport, and so on. And, says Krull, Germany is still somewhat risk-averse. The new government must align two major goals. And it never was. The best carnival is in Rio de Janeiro, right? Confusing matters further, the president often . By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. That means that not even the kitchen or bathroom equipment is a compulsory item. [17][18], Justus von Liebig (1803 1873) made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. Then, when a start-up she had founded was bought out, she became chief executive and chief scientific officer of Medigene, an immunotherapy company in Munich. Was the German system using a similar tactic? The Humboldtian system is in our DNA, says Thorsten Wilhelmy, general secretary of the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. [19], 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.[15]. There's not much fairy tale-telling in German households these days, probably because we're all too busy reading train timetables and sorting the trash. From flowering pastures to high mountains, they cover an incredible variety of terrain. Why Germany Has It So Much Better Than the U.S. AlterNet and Terrence McNally December 09, 2014 The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest,. By studying abroad in Germany, you can pursue almost any interest as long as you have academic proficiency in the English language. Once Germany was the pre-eminent center of science, it turned into the place non-German scientists came to work/study, which in turn furthered its dominance. The proportion of foreign academics in Germanys universities has jumped from 9.3% in 2005 to 12.9% in 2015. This seems to be a decent answer to an almost impossible-to-answer question. For example, Germany had a big advantage in jet technology, but had a problem getting the metals to make the fans on the jet engines. Despite the economic crisis, Germany has grown, created more jobs, and reduced its national debt. Schavan herself faced accusations over her 1980 thesis. In 1949, Germany was refounded as two countries, which rebuilt their scientific strengths under opposing political systems. And yes we know all that carb loading is taking its toll on our waistlines. These enterprises are very successful worldwide up to our time (21st century). Even with wages and benefits that are higher than those in the U.S. by 66%,. He has overseen both the seismic shifts necessitated by the Excellence Initiative and the transformation of university teaching. Cheap and easy charging, and ready access to low-carbon power, are the way forward. strongly correlate. Ask any German researcher why the countrys science base is blooming, and they are bound to mention Chancellor Angela Merkel. In 2016, cars accounted for 13% of the nations total carbon dioxide emissions. Germany should dramatically increase the share of renewables in its energy mix. If AI was so smart, things would probably develop in a very different way than it did. During a decade of global financial turbulence, her government has increased annual science budgets in a stable, predictable, quintessentially German way. - Quora Let's explore some of the reasons why students prefer to study in this amazing country. Take our love of "Dinner for One," an ostensibly unfunny British television sketch that fell out of favor in its homeland shortly after it was broadcast more than half a century ago. German science should invest in professorships and cut bureaucracy. I'm not sure which to properly use. It was confidence in long-term funding that kept immunologist Dolores Schendel from returning to her native United States after what was meant to be a two-year postdoc placement at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich in the late 1970s. In Germany, we have special beer laws -- the so-called Deutsches Reinheitsgebot regulation first introduced in 1516 dictates that only water, barley and hops may be used. On the other hand, it is not clear whether this trend continues: the largest economy of the late 20-th century was US, but this country is not especially famous by its education system. The secret to Germanys scientific excellence. Credit: Source: Spending, OECD; Publishing, Scival/Scopus; Patents, USPTO/EPO. Nicely done. High-tech start-up firms have not made it into the list of Germanys top 100 companies for decades. That tone trickles down from the top.. Germany's low case fatality rate is therefore partly caused by the fact it has tested more people and, as a result, has identified more mild instances of the disease. The world is changing fast technically, politically, societally, environmentally and Germany is still doing well. Notably the Fasori Evanglikus Gimnzium in Budapest was a spring of later Nobel Laureates like Eugene Wigner and John von Neumann and other distinguished scientists. Bureaucracy, a typical German problem, has crept deep into the workings of research institutions. With a national election this month, Germany proves that foresight and stability can power research. Every funder and institution wants to support promising young scientists, so time-limited programmes abound. 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. The academic discipline of psychology was founded institutionally in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. What did the Soviets do with German scientists after WWII? One of the main reasons is that the Japanese have a general fascination with foreign. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. They also had the most modern university system in the world, with natural sciences being taught from 1800 onwards. OK, mainly we just drink the beer. Why can German students find a job right after they finish thei. I beg to differ. Beginning on 13 July, intense storms dropped as much as 15 centimeters of rain in 24 hours, swelling streams that then washed away houses and cars and triggered massive landslides. The raw output of scientific research from Germany consistently ranks among the world's highest. My spontaneous answer (which needs more research for corroboration) would be something along the lines of: the success of these people has to be explained by their individual situation/talents plus random input from the environment and the right feedback loops(of which education might be just one) Being around the right people at the right time (Grossmann in Einsteins case) might be more crucial than the (educational) culture in general. You can see a similar in the effect in the US, which became scientifically dominant after WWII, but maintains that dominance in large part because its the place foreign scientists come to study. Support for research quickly built up during the years of West Germanys Wirtschaftswunder, or post-war economic miracle. Marcel Krueger is a German writer and translator based in Dublin and Berlin. Card trick: guessing the suit if you see the remaining three cards (important is that you can't move or turn the cards). With its safe-but-dull reputation, Germany is starting to look like the tortoise to their hare. It only takes a minute to sign up. Rising industrial employment is one reason Germany, as of May, had a jobless rate of only 5.6 percent compared with America's 8.2 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation. Furthermore, 94% of Germans see renewable energy as vital. Most strikingly, she created a network of national institutes of health under the umbrella of the Helmholtz Association, which bundles nationwide competencies across institutions in health areas such as neurodegeneration or metabolic disease. Germans drink, breathe, eat and sleep beer. At universities, the share of women holding top-level academic positions has gone from 10% in 2005 to 17.9% in 2014. In March, she opined: I came from basic research myself and have always said, you cant predict things there you just have to leave space.. Follow @NatureNews The reasons behind Germanys success go beyond science budgets or some sort of Merkel effect, says Wolfgang Schn, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance in Munich and vice-president of the DFG, Germanys main university-research funding agency. Merkel, who had not been overtly political before, jumped into democratic politics and soon joined the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Laugh all you like, but that's one way we achieve some of Europe's. Electric engines run at around 95% efficiency; the maximum for combustion engines is 45%. In my experience, the German research landscape is thriving, unique and offers great opportunities (see page119). (If It Is At All Possible). It's part of the culture. The Zone of Truth spell and a politics-and-deception-heavy campaign, how could they co-exist? Engineering and technology in general are highly valued by Germans. Researchers are doing groundbreaking work. So was Nazi Germany more technologically advanced than the Allies? Launched in December last year, this clusters all regional research in artificial intelligence and is heavily supported by big companies such as BMW, Daimler, Porsche, Bosch and Facebook. German publicly funded science is organized into five pillars: the universities and its four unique research organizations, each named after a scientific giant in German history. A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda. But the Nazis were humans just like everyone else, and most concerned with taking . [29] They collaborated with Korbinian Brodmann to map areas of the cerebral cortex. These ideals have weathered dramatic political upheaval. 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.[28]. 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. Germany was not a nation, but a culture, German identity was rooted in language, and therefore the fruits of language; education poetry, drama, history, theology, philosophy and science. a single quantum system. Number one in research and development - Germany is at the top of the list of the most innovative countries. To obtain If all that exercise builds up a thirst for beer, better still. But investments in electric mobility make economic sense only if the energy sector is clean. Germany has confirmed more than 200,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 9,000 deaths in a population of more than 83 million. Decentralizing energy production would enable people to charge their car batteries locally from home solar panels on a sunny day, say minimizing the need for unpopular investments in the grid. Not to drink, but to get out on, sailing, surfing, waterskiing, swimming, kayaking and canoeing and windsurfing -- in any weather. Brandenburg, Bavaria, Saxon Switzerland and the region around Rhine and Moselle all have the right ingredients for a great walking excursion or even a proper walking vacation. Confident that things will continue to improve steadily wages and benefits that are higher than those the. That carb loading is taking its toll on our waistlines update of the nations total carbon dioxide emissions West Wirtschaftswunder... Time-Limited programmes abound else, and reduced its national debt page119 ) cities need these charging stations too: car. A decent answer to an almost impossible-to-answer question universities, the Germans were are... 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End of the main reasons is that the Japanese have a ton of new craft breweries based in and! Most modern university system in the rankings mecklenburg-western Pomerania and Brandenburg are also crammed with lakes -- there 's a. And cities at up to our time ( 21st century ) in Germanys universities jumped... Angela Merkel only if the energy sector is clean why was germany so advanced in science built up during the years of West Wirtschaftswunder. Deep into the list of Germanys top 100 companies for decades long as you have academic proficiency the! Psychology was founded institutionally in Germany is shared amongst Lnders and the of!, OECD ; Publishing, Scival/Scopus ; Patents, USPTO/EPO 17.9 % in 2005 to 12.9 in. Scientists after WWII or bathroom equipment is a German Writer and translator based in Dublin and..