Science and technology in Germany has reached achievements which have been very

significant and research and development efforts form an integral part of the
country's economy. Germany has been the home of some of the most prominent
researchers in various scientific disciplines, notably physics, mathematics,
chemistry and engineering.[1] Before World War II, Germany had generated more Nobel
laureates in scientific fields than any other nation. It compelled as best country
in the natural sciences.[2][3]

Scientific research in the country is supported by industry, by the network of

German universities and by scientific state-institutions such as the Max Planck
Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The raw output of scientific
research from Germany consistently ranks among the world's best.[4] Germany was
named the second most innovative country in the world in the 2015 Bloomberg
Innovation Index,[5] and consistently manages to be in the top three.[citation
needed]

Contents
1 Institutions
1.1 Foundations
1.2 National science libraries
1.3 Research organizations
1.4 Prize committees
2 Scientific fields
2.1 Physics
2.2 Chemistry
2.3 Engineering
2.4 Biological and earth sciences
2.5 Psychology
2.6 Humanities
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
Institutions
See also: List of universities in Germany

European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt near Frankfurt

Foundations
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology (BMWi)
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), promoting international exchange of
scientists and students)
National science libraries
German National Library of Economics (ZWB)
German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED)
German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB)
Research organizations
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Fraunhofer Society (applied research and mission oriented research)
Leibniz Association (fundamental and applied research)
Max Planck Society (fundamental research)
Gesellschaft f�r Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik
Prize committees
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is granted to ten scientists and academics
every year. With a maximum of �2.5 million per award it is one of highest endowed
research prizes in the world.[6]

Scientific fields
Physics
See also: List of German physicists

Albert Einstein
The work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck was crucial to the foundation of modern
physics, which Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schr�dinger developed further.[7] They
were preceded by such key physicists as Hermann von Helmholtz, Joseph von
Fraunhofer, and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, among others. Wilhelm Conrad R�ntgen
discovered X-rays, an accomplishment that made him the first winner of the Nobel
Prize in Physics in 1901[8] and eventually earned him an element name, roentgenium.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation were
pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication.[9] Mathematical
aerodynamics was developed in Germany, especially by Ludwig Prandtl.

Paul Forman in 1971 argued the remarkable scientific achievements in quantum

physics were the cross-product of the hostile intellectual atmosphere whereby many
scientists rejected Weimar Germany and Jewish scientists, revolts against
causality, determinism and materialism, and the creation of the revolutionary new
theory of quantum mechanics. The scientists adjusted to the intellectual
environment by dropping Newtonian causality from quantum mechanics, thereby opening
up an entirely new and highly successful approach to physics. The "Forman Thesis"
has generated an intense debate among historians of science.[10][11]

Chemistry
See also: List of German chemists

Otto Hahn
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.[8]

Otto Hahn is considered a pioneer of radioactivity and radiochemistry with the

discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, the scientific and technological basis of
atomic energy.

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.

Engineering
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors and engineers, such as Johannes
Gutenberg, who is credited with the invention of movable type printing in Europe;
Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the
first electronic computer.[12] German inventors, engineers and industrialists such
as Zeppelin, Siemens, Daimler, Diesel, Otto, Wankel, Von Braun and Benz helped
shape modern automotive and air transportation technology including the beginnings
of space travel.[13][14] The engineer Otto Lilienthal laid some of the fundamentals
for the science of aviation.[15]

Biological and earth sciences

Emil Behring, Ferdinand Cohn, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Friedrich Loeffler and
Rudolph Virchow, six key figures in microbiology, were from Germany. Alexander von
Humboldt's (1769�1859) work as a natural scientist and explorer was foundational to
biogeography.[16] Wladimir K�ppen (1846�1940) was an eclectic Russian-born botanist
and climatologist who synthesized global relationships between climate, vegetation
and soil types into a classification system that is used, with some modifications,
to this day.[17] Alfred Wegener (1880�1930), a similarly interdisciplinary
scientist, was one of the first people to hypothesize the theory of continental
drift which was later developed into the overarching geological theory of plate
tectonics.

Psychology
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.[18]

Humanities
Besides natural sciences, German researchers have added much to the development of
humanities. Contemporary examples are the philosopher J�rgen Habermas, the
egyptologist Jan Assmann, the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the historian Reinhart
Koselleck and the legal historian Michael Stolleis. In order to promote the
international visibility of research in these fields a new prize,
Geisteswissenschaften International, was established in 2008. It serves the
translation of studies in humanities into English