Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (28 June 1912 in Kiel, Germany), is a German physicist and philosopher. He is the son of the German diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker, brother of the former German president Richard von Weizsäcker, and father of the physicist and environmental researcher Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker.
Contents |
[edit] Life
From 1929 to 1933, Weizsäcker studied physics, mathematics and astronomy in Berlin, Göttingen and Leipzig, under the tutelage of such luminaries as Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr. The supervisor of his doctoral thesis was Friedrich Hund.
His special interest as a young researcher was the binding energy of atomic nuclei, and the nuclear processes in stars. Together with Hans Bethe he found a formula for the nuclear processing in stars, called the Bethe-Weizsäcker formula and the cyclic process of fusion in stars (Bethe-Weizsäcker process, published 1937). From 1957 to 1969, he taught philosophy in Hamburg. In 1957 he won the Max Planck medal.
During the Second World War, he joined the German nuclear energy project, participating in efforts to construct an atomic bomb.
While historians are divided as to whether Heisenberg was sincerely trying to construct the bomb, or whether he was trying to delay the project, Weizsäcker himself said that he developed a theory for a plutonium bomb and made a petition to the Heereswaffenamt (weapons office of the army). Later he said that he had hoped to get influence on politics that way, and that "Nur durch göttliche Gnade" ("only through divine mercy") was he spared from the consequences of this.
After the war, Weizsäcker was one of the ten top German physicists who were detained at Farm Hall, near Cambridge. His experiences in the Nazi era, and with his own behavior in this time, made him a very reflective man, who was interested in questions on ethics and responsibility; thus, he was one of the Göttinger 18 - 18 prominent German physicists - who protested in 1957 against the idea that the Bundeswehr, should be armed with tactical nuclear weapons. He further suggested that West Germany should declare its definitive abdication of all kinds of nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War he established peace and conflict studies in West Germany and began more and more philosophical studies. On his chair for philosophy in Hamburg he researched about the entity of nature and the social and biological roots of mankind. In the same time he was head of a research institut for prevention of war and the food situation of the world. Some year later he became president of the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (German development service for the 3rd world).
In 1970 he formulated a "Weltinnenpoltik" (world internal policy). From 1970 to 1980, he was Head of the "Max Planck Institute (zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt" in Starnberg), institute for the research of living condition in the modern world. He shared the head position of this institute with Jürgen Habermas. They were especially interested in the danger of nuclear war the conflict between 1st and 3rd world and the consequences of environmental destruction.
In the 1970s he founded, together with the Indian philosopher Pandit Gopi Krishna, a research foundation "for western sciences and eastern wisdom".
After his retirement in 1980 he became a radical Christian pacifist.
[edit] Awards
In 1963 he got the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (peace award of the German booksellers). In 1989, he won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He also got the Order Pour le Merite.
[edit] Works
- Zum Weltbild der Physik, Leipzig 1946 (ISBN 3-7776-1209-X)
- translation into English The World View of Physics, Londres 1952
- translation into French Le Monde vu par la Physique, Paris 1956
- Die Geschichte der Natur, Göttingen 1948 (ISBN 3-7776-1398-3)
- Die Einheit der Natur, Munich 1971 (ISBN 342333083X)
- translationThe Unity of Nature, New York, 1980 (0-374-28100-9)
- Wege in der Gefahr, Munich 1976
- translation The Politics of Peril, New-York 1978
- Der Garten des Menschlichen, Munich 1977 (ISBN 3-446-12423-3)
- traduction The Ambivalence of progress, essays on historical anthropology, New York 1988 (ISBN 0-913729-92-2)
- The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius, Gopi Krishna, New York, intro. by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, which is half the book, 1971, 1972 (ISBN 0060647884)
- Aufbau der Physik, Munich 1985 (ISBN 3446141421
- translation The Structure of Physics, Heidelberg 2006 (ISBN 1-4020-5234-0; ISBN 978-1-4020-5234-7)
- Der Mensch in seiner Geschichte, Munich 1991 (ISBN 3-446-16361-1)
- Zeit und Wissen, Munich 1992 (ISBN 3-446-16367-0)
- Große Physiker, Munich 1999 (ISBN 3-446-18772-3)
Note regarding personal names: Freiherr is a title, translated as Baron, not a first or middle name. The female forms are Freifrau and Freiin.
