,,Ehrende Auszeichnung“ oder ,,Aufforderung zur Leistung eines Geldbeitrages“? |
| |
Authors: | Andreas Kleinert |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. Fachgruppe Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und Technik FB Physik, Martin-Luther-Universit?t Halle-Wittenberg, Hoher Weg 4, D-06120, Halle, Germany
|
| |
Abstract: | In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many prominent German and Austrian scientists declined the election as a member
of the Kaiserliche Leopoldinisch-Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (in short: Leopoldina) because they were
not willing to pay the entrance and membership fees of about one fifth of the monthly salary of a full professor. Many of
theses candidates simply did not answer to the president’s notification of being elected. Some of them came up with ,,various
reasons not to be discussed”, or referred to their individual financial situation.The physicist Heinrich Hertz, who had become
famous by the discovery of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880ies, was the only elected candidate who protested bluntly
against what he considered as an unworthy procedure. Although it would not have been a much of a burden for him to afford
the requested entrance and membership fees, he refused to adhere to an association whose statues combined the award of an
academic distinction with the obligation of financial support. In two letters addressed to Leopoldina President Carl Hermann
Knoblauch,Hertz gave his reasons for declining his election to the academy. In the present article, Hertz’s letters to Knoblauch
are fully published for the first time.
|
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|