Curated playlist
Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Robert KochRobert Koch announced the cause of tuberculosis in 1882, and hardly anyone reacted.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelHegel watched Napoleon ride out of Jena the day before the 1806 battle. The philosopher called him "this world-soul."
- Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger formulated his wave equation at a Swiss sanatorium in Arosa. He was ill with tuberculosis.
- Max PlanckMax Planck called his quantum idea "an act of despair." The cautious physicist launched quantum physics reluctantly.
- Werner HeisenbergA spy once carried a pistol to a Werner Heisenberg lecture, ready to shoot him. Moe Berg did not fire.
- Arthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who, in 1820, asked the University of Berlin to schedule his lectures for the very hour when Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel taught. Hegel was the celebrated name of the day. Only five students…
- Max WeberMax Weber died in 1920 with his major book unfinished on his desk. His widow spent two years preparing it.
- Georg SimmelMax Weber and Edmund Husserl backed Georg Simmel, yet he got no full professor's chair until age 56.
- Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
- Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen insisted on checking every Latin inscription against the original stone.
- Barthold Georg NiebuhrHistorian Barthold Georg Niebuhr found a lost Roman law text in a Verona cathedral library.
- Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.