Curated playlist
University of Göttingen alumni
- J. Robert OppenheimerJ. Robert Oppenheimer gripped a post to steady himself as the first nuclear bomb went off.
- Robert KochRobert Koch announced the cause of tuberculosis in 1882, and hardly anyone reacted.
- August Wilhelm SchlegelAugust Wilhelm Schlegel translated Shakespeare so well that the playwright became a national poet of Germany.
- J. P. MorganA visit from J. P. Morgan, one man said, left him feeling "as if a gale had blown through the house." The American financier had that effect on people. He was physically large, with massive shoulders and piercing eyes. His nose was swollen…
- 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…
- Carl Friedrich GaussAt nineteen, Carl Friedrich Gauss proved a 17-sided polygon could be drawn with just a compass and straightedge.
- Max WeberMax Weber died in 1920 with his major book unfinished on his desk. His widow spent two years preparing it.
- Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von Humboldt climbed Chimborazo in 1802, gasping and bleeding from his gums.
- Ursula von der LeyenUrsula von der Leyen, who would later lead the European Commission, spent more than a year of her youth hiding in London under the name Rose Ladson. In 1978 her family was warned that the Red Army Faction, a West German terrorist group,…
- Jan AssmannEgyptologist Jan Assmann later admitted he no longer held his famous theory of monotheism in its original form.
- Hermann WeylMathematician Hermann Weyl fled Germany in 1933 after once refusing to leave. His wife was Jewish.
- Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
- Élie MetchnikoffÉlie Metchnikoff poked citrus thorns into starfish larvae in 1882 and watched cells swarm them.
- Otto von BismarckIn 1889, Otto von Bismarck was recorded on an Edison phonograph, quoting the opening verse of La Marseillaise among other lines. That recording is the only known capture of his voice. One biographer argues that he chose the French song to…