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How English Beat German As the Language of Science
HughPickens.com writes German was the dominant scientific language in 1900. Today if a scientist is going to coin a new term, it's most likely in English. And if they are going to publish a new discovery, it is most definitely in English. Look no further than the Nobel Prize awarded for physiology and medicine to Norwegian couple May-Britt and Edvard Moser. Their research was written and published in English. How did English come to dominate German in the realm of science? BBC reports that the major shock to the system was World War One, which had two major impacts. According to Gordin, after World War One, Belgian, French and British scientists organized a boycott of scientists from Germany and Austria. They were blocked from conferences and weren't able to publish in Western European journals. "Increasingly, you have two scientific communities, one German, which functions in the defeated [Central Powers] of Germany and Austria, and another that functions in Western Europe, which is mostly English and French," says Gordin.
The second effect of World War One took place in the US. Starting in 1917 when the US entered the war, there was a wave of anti-German hysteria that swept the country. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota there were many, many German speakers. World War One changed all that. "German is criminalized in 23 states. You're not allowed to speak it in public, you're not allowed to use it in the radio, you're not allowed to teach it to a child under the age of 10," says Gordin. The Supreme Court overturned those anti-German laws in 1923, but for years they were the law of the land. What that effectively did, according to Gordin, was decimate foreign language learning in the US resulting in a generation of future scientists who came of age with limited exposure to foreign languages. That was also the moment, according to Gordin, when the American scientific establishment started to take over dominance in the world. "The story of the 20th Century is not so much the rise of English as the serial collapse of German as the up-and-coming language of scientific communication," concludes Gordin.
The second effect of World War One took place in the US. Starting in 1917 when the US entered the war, there was a wave of anti-German hysteria that swept the country. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota there were many, many German speakers. World War One changed all that. "German is criminalized in 23 states. You're not allowed to speak it in public, you're not allowed to use it in the radio, you're not allowed to teach it to a child under the age of 10," says Gordin. The Supreme Court overturned those anti-German laws in 1923, but for years they were the law of the land. What that effectively did, according to Gordin, was decimate foreign language learning in the US resulting in a generation of future scientists who came of age with limited exposure to foreign languages. That was also the moment, according to Gordin, when the American scientific establishment started to take over dominance in the world. "The story of the 20th Century is not so much the rise of English as the serial collapse of German as the up-and-coming language of scientific communication," concludes Gordin.
And yet the funny / ironic thing is the Werner von Braun orchestrated a surrender of his team to the US instead of the rapidly advancing Russian forces due to religious reasons... he would prefer the German rocket scientists fall into the hands of Christians instead of atheists.
The ensuing space race / cold war could have turned out much differently.
I read Turing's Cathedral recently that discussed this exact topic (with relation to math). German was still very strong after WW1 (Godel, Von Neumann, Hilbert, Einstein, Schrödinger and even more if you include groups like Hungary and Poland who were strong in math but discussed it in German, which is where we got Ulam and Teller). Unfortunately for the Germans, a lot of those mathematicians were Jewish, and they left when they saw war coming. Most of Ulam's family that didn't leave were killed in the Holocaust.
In the US, some foresighted individuals (like Veblen, Aydeloytte and Flexner at Princeton's Advanced Institute especially) made a huge effort to help the German scientists escape. So many top scientists did leave that the entire center of science moved from the German world to America.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not really von Braun did more as political figure than as an engineer. The Thor, Atlas, and Titan had very little input from von Braun and Polaris and Minuteman had zero.
I doubt that religion had much to do with it. I am sure avoiding being slaves in Russia had a lot more to do with it.
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So you had the choose of optional Christianity vs. Mandatory Atheism.
Now the U.S. weren't any saints but our culture was separated by an ocean from the war and were able keep our ideals a little more in controlled and more willing to accept different people especially in the more urban areas.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I would say that melting pot works better than multiculturalism, and it also happens at the genetic level. Most Americans are mutts, which isn't as common elsewhere AFAIK.
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Yes. That is why a pedantic and painfully logical interpretation of the constitution is usually for the best, even when you don't much like the result. Popular opinion often leads to a lot of creative interpretation that looks evil in hindsight. I can't wait until the 9th amendment starts getting some real traction. The roots of freedom lie in letting people do things you don't like so much, as long as it is causing no harm to you.
My mother and uncle were born in the days of anti-German hysteria, my grandfather was Swiss, and grandmother Austrian. At home, they spoke a dielect of German that most Germans would consider hardly German, but to their American neighbors, it was German enough. When my mother started school, she came home crying every day because her English was so heavily accented. My grandparents switched overnight to speaking English at home (which they probably should have doen earlier, but for different reasons.) My uncle, two years old at the time, remembers being highly confused that one day he could ask for bread and get bread, the next day he would ask for bread and get his hand slapped.
Another neighbor, born of Swiss parents about the same time, told me about checking his lunch as he walked to school, and throwing the sandwich in the ditch if it was Swiss cheese. He didn't want to be teased about being a German cheese-eater.
The USA has not always walked worthy of the document that started it all (The Declaration of Independence) but we are generally progressing towards the realization of it's principles.
Did we have slaves? Initially, yes. However, we did fight a bloody civil war in the 1860's and managed to abolish it in our laws. Tens of thousands of lives, both white and black where lost in this war. The USA paid in blood to do right.
Did we illegally arrest and hold Japanese Americans during WWII? Yes, but we have recognized that it was wrong and done what we can to restore what was lost.
Did we take territory from Mexico during a war? Of course, during the war we actually took ALL of Mexico, seems to me we gave a lot of it back and I'd bet that the people who live there now wish we had kept it all. Also don't forget that this war was to protect the disputed areas called Texas which had already declared it's independence and then joined the Union in 1845. Territory that had gone though multiple country's hands, including France, Spain before Mexico ended up with it. But this war was initiated by Mexico's attacks, and when the USA totally defeated Mexico, we gave most of it back to them.
Civil rights laws have (as a matter of law) established equal rights for all Americans. We may not have lived up to that ideal, but it is ILLEGAL to discriminate based on race or gender. Any failure to meet that ideal needs to be subject to legal action and dealt with in the courts.
How all this says that the USA is a bad place is beyond me. Are we perfect? No. But we are advancing closer to the ideal expressed in our founding document. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." We need to keep advancing on the ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence and should not abandon our past by declaring the USA a lost cause. Because it will only truly be a lost cause if we give up.
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One small correction... We returned a LOT of Mexico, but not MOST of it after the war. The USA kept 55% or so but the land was seen as worthless, having little water. However, in the treaty that ended the war we did pay some of their debts and damages. Also, any citizens of Mexico where offered relocation from the territory if they wanted to stay in Mexico. If they stayed, they where given immediate US citizenship including the right to vote.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Also don't forget that this war was to protect the disputed areas called Texas which had already declared it's independence and then joined the Union in 1845.
American settlers in Texas, with U.S. support, declared independence from Mexico to protect slavery, which was illegal in Mexico. Nothing noble about that.
Did we take territory from Mexico during a war? Of course, during the war we actually took ALL of Mexico, seems to me we gave a lot of it back
We let them keep half their country? Aren't we special! I guess if Russia took all of the Ukraine and gave half of it back, they'd be wonderful too.
I'd bet that the people who live there now wish we had kept it all
Mexico would be much wealthier country if we hadn't taken half of their territory. Not to mention the constant meddling of the United States in Mexican affairs. As Mexican President Porfirio Diaz said: "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!"
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