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Curated playlist

Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences

  • VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
  • Immanuel KantA Prussian king's censors forbade Immanuel Kant to speak publicly about religion. The philosopher answered in 1798.
  • Carl LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus exposed a mayor's prized seven-headed hydra as a fake. He and his student had to flee Hamburg in a hurry.
  • Denis DiderotJailed writer Denis Diderot annotated Paradise Lost with a toothpick and ink made from slate and wine.
  • Joseph-Louis LagrangeAt seventeen, mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange read a paper by Edmond Halley and was seized by mathematics.
  • MontesquieuMontesquieu published The Spirit of Law anonymously in 1748, and the Church banned it in 1751.
  • Robert KochRobert Koch announced the cause of tuberculosis in 1882, and hardly anyone reacted.
  • Leonhard EulerLeonhard Euler kept producing math after going almost totally blind. In 1775 he wrote about one paper a week.
  • Christoph Martin WielandGoethe attacked Christoph Martin Wieland in a satire, and Wieland recommended it.
  • Catherine the GreatCatherine the Great seized Russia's throne by overthrowing her own husband. The coup came in July 1762.
  • 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.
  • Jacob GrimmJacob Grimm and his brother expected their dictionary to take roughly ten years. It was finished in 1961.
  • Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von Humboldt climbed Chimborazo in 1802, gasping and bleeding from his gums.
  • Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
  • Dmitri MendeleevDmitri Mendeleev missed a Nobel Prize in 1906 by a single vote. The Swedish academy chose Henri Moissan instead.
  • Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.
  • Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen insisted on checking every Latin inscription against the original stone.
  • Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.

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