University of Göttingen

If you have ever read about mathematicians or physicists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries you have heard of the University of Gottingen.

Created in 1734 by decree from King George II of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, classes started in 1736. These early classes were held in a nearby monastery or in the professors' homes.

While the university has had a reputation of educational excellence for most of its history, including 44 Nobel laureates, it has not been without a few scandals. One such scandal was when 7 professors, Die Göttinger Siben, were expelled for protesting the revocation of the liberal constitution by the King of Hanover in 1837. Die Göttinger Siben included the Brothers Grimm who were philologists at the university.

During the early 20th Century German became the international academic language with many PhD dissertations having German titles even in English speaking countries. It was considered that your academic training was only complete once you had studied in Germany so many well known Americans have Göttingen on their transcripts.

David Hilbert

Felix Klein

By 1900, David Hilbert and Felix Klein began recruiting the leading minds in mathematics in the world, turning Göttingen in to a leading center of mathematics.

Göttingen had a strong physics presence, including a guest lecture by Einstein, from the beginning of its history it really began to thrive during the 1920s with Max Born as the head of the department and the completion of quantum theory.

The Great Purge

In the 1930s, with the rise to power of the Nazi Party, the university was the center of the party's suppression of "Jewish physics." The passage of the Law of the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in 1933 forced many of the university's mathematics and physics professors to "retire." Many chose to leave for America, where Einstein had gone, or to other Ally nations. Even after the end of WWII the university never was able to regain its earlier dominance and reputation in academics.

University of Göttingen Notable Scientists and Mathematicians

Ernst Abbe — Optics
Wilhelm Ackermann — Mathematics
Arne Bathke — Mathematics
Paul Bernays — Mathematics, mathematical logic — (Student, later Professor extraordinarius)
Patrick Blackett — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1948
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach— comparative anatomy

Max Born

Max Born — Mathematical Physics — (Professor ordinarius) — (1882–1970, in Göttingen 1921–1933) — Nobel Prize in Physics 1954
Walther Bothe — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1954 together with Max Born
Bertram Brenig — Veterinary Medicine — (Professor ordinarius) — development of a bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) ante mortem test
Michael Buback — Chemistry
Adolf Butenandt — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1939
Moritz Benedikt Cantor — Mathematics
Constantin Carathéodory — Mathematics

Richard Courant

Richard Courant — Mathematics
Peter Debye — Mathematical Physics — (Professor ordinarius) — (1884–1966, in Göttingen 1914–1920) — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1936
Richard Dedekind — Mathematics
Hans Georg Dehmelt — Nobel Prize in Physics 1989
Max Delbrück — Astronomy, Physics — Nobel Prize in Medicine 1969
Paul Dirac — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1933 (with Erwin Schrödinger)
Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet — Mathematics
Manfred Eigen — Biophysical Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967 (with Ronald G. W. Norrish and George Porter)
Albert Einstein — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 — (Guest lecturer, 1915)
Heinz Ellenberg — Biology, Botany — (Professor ordinarius) (1913–1997, in Göttingen 1966–1981 emeritus)
William Feller — Mathematics
James Franck — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1925 (with Gustav Hertz)
Enrico Fermi — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1938
Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs — Mathematics
Carl Friedrich Gauß — Astronomy, geodesy, mathematics, physics — (Professor ordinarius for astronomy)

Carl Gauß

Gerhard Gentzen — Mathematics
Kurt Gödel — Mathematical logic — (Guest lecturer, 1939)
Maria Goeppert-Mayer — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1963
Hans Grauert — Mathematics
August Grisebach — Botany
Alfréd Haar — Mathematics
Otto Hahn — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1944
Georg Hamel — Mathematics
Herbert Hawkes — Mathematics
Stefan W. Hell — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014
Walter Norman Haworth — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1937
Helmut Hasse — Mathematics
Heinrich Heesch — Mathematics
Andreas J. Heinrich — Physics

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg — Physics — (Professor ordinarius) — Nobel Prize in Physics 1932
Ernst Hellinger — Mathematics
Gerhard Herzberg — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1971
David Hilbert — Mathematics — (Professor ordinarius)
Heinz Hopf — Mathematics
Friedrich Hund — Mathematics
Ernst Ising — Mathematics
Abraham Gotthelf Kästner — Mathematics
Felix Klein — Mathematics
Carl Koldewey — Mathematics
Herbert Kroemer — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 2000
Wolfgang Krull — Mathematics
Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn — Physics
Edmund Landau — Mathematics
Dieter Langbein — Theoretical physics
Irving Langmuir — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1932
Max von Laue — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1914

Hermann Minkowski

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg — Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy — (Student) — (Professor ordinarius)

Saunders Mac Lane — Mathematics
Tobias Mayer — Mathematics
Robert Andrews Millikan — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1923
Hermann Minkowski — Mathematics
Leonard Nelson — Mathematics
Walther Nernst — Physical Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1920
Albert Niemann — First man to synthesize cocaine
Emmy Noether — Mathematics

Emmy Noether

Robert Oppenheimer — Physics (Ph.D.)

Peter Simon Pallas — Zoology, Botany — (Student)
Wolfgang Pauli — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
Wilhelm Pfeffer — Botany — (Student)
Max Planck — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1918
Ludwig Prandtl — Physics — (Professor ordinarius)
Richard Rado — Mathematics
Johann Radon — Mathematics
Kurt Reidemeister — Mathematics
Theodore William Richards — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1914
Frigyes Riesz — Mathematics
Bernhard Riemann — Mathematics — (Professor ordinarius)
Walther Ritz — Mathematics
Carl Runge — Mathematics
Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen — Geology
Friedrich Schlegel
August Wilhelm Schlegel

Hertha Sponer

Arthur Moritz Schönflies — Mathematics

Hermann Amandus Schwarz — Mathematics
Kurt Sethe — Egyptology — (Professor ordinarius)
Carl Ludwig Siegel — Mathematics — (Professor ordinarius)
Hertha Sponer — PhysicsMoritz Abraham Stern — Mathematics — (Professor ordinarius)
Otto Stern — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1943
Gabriel Sudan — Mathematics
Thoralf Skolem — Mathematics, mathematical logic — (Guest researcher)
Thomas A. Steitz — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009
Gustav Tammann — Inorganic and Physical Chemistry
Edward Teller — Physics
Le Van Thiem — Mathematics
Otto Toeplitz — Mathematics
Johann Georg Tralles — Mathematics

John von Neumann

John von Neumann — Mathematics
Otto Wallach — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1910
Bartel Leendert van der Waerden — Mathematics
Wilhelm Weber — Physics — (Professor ordinarius)
Julius Weisbach — Mathematics
Hermann Weyl — Mathematics
Eugene Paul Wigner — Physics — Nobel Prize in Physics 1963
Wilhelm Wien — (Student) — Nobel Prize in Physics 1911
Norbert Wiener — Mathematics
Adolf Windaus — Chemistry — Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1928
Friedrich Wöhler — Chemistry, Pharmacy — (Professor ordinarius)
Ernst Zermelo — Mathematics