Max von Laue was born as Max Laue in 1879 to Julius Laue and Minna Zerrenner. His father was later raised to hereditary nobility, for which the ‘von’ was added. The father was a German military administrator, thus the family moved frequently during von Laue’s childhood. A professor in Strasbourg interested him in the sciences,…
Graves from Göttingen: Carl Friedrich Gauss
When I arrived in Göttingen, I didn’t know who Carl Friedrich Gauss was. It was one of my classmates who told me about Gauss, and was deeply shocked that I was not familiar with him. The day I left Göttingen, on my way across town to catch my train, I took a detour to find…
Graves from Göttingen: Adolf Windaus
Adolf Windaus was born on Christmas Day, 1876 to Margarete Elster and Adolf Windaus. He was born into a family that had mostly been tradesmen and artisans—his father was a drapery manufacturer. However, as a child, he attended the prestigious Französisches Gymnasium in Berlin. Although he had been interested in literature and the humanities as…
Graves from Göttingen: Richard Adolf Zsigmondy
Nanotechnology often seems like it belongs in the pages of a science fiction book, but it’s been studied for well over a hundred years. It is now known that the Romans used nanotechnology to make such things as the fascinating Lycurgus Cup, and scientists from the 17th century alchemist Daniel Sennert to Michael Faraday have…
Graves from Göttingen: Max Planck
You should know the name of Max Planck. Not only does he have a German research institution chain named after him, he also completely revolutionized physics around the turn of the last century. His work with thermodynamic problems, such as blackbody radiation and a phenomenon known as the ultraviolet catastrophe, led him to develop his…