Talk:Deutsche Physik

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'war-winning atomic bomb' I'm not wild about, but I'm not sure how best to edit it. Is the intended sense that it could have changed the outcome of the war (if developed by the Axis); or that it terminated the war, at the time it did? Alai 06:57, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The latter, but it's not essential. --Fastfission 13:37, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Loanword or not?

My addition of Category:German loanwords to this article was recently rejected, on the grounds that the phrase is simply a German phrase that is sometimes used in English. I would argue that that's exactly what a loan word is. I was using the criterion that as long as it could be used in an English sentence without qualification (e.g. "Deutsche Physik, as the Germans called it"), then it is a loan word (or phrase). Would anyone care to disagree? I accept that it's not the sort of thing one first thinks of when considering loan words, but I believe it still counts. At least, there's no point in removing it from the category, when that could be useful for somebody. --Stemonitis 16:19, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree because I don't think that's what a loanword is at all. First of all, Deutsche Physik is the name of a particular historical movement. It has one meaning. It is not generalizable. Merriam-Webster's definition of "loanword" is worth consulting:

a word taken from another language and at least partly naturalized

It's the latter part which distinguishes a loanword from just any word used from another language. Deutsche Physik is not a loanword under any practical definition, and the way it is written is evidence of this enough: usually in italics, always with the capital P used in German nouns. It has not been even partly naturalized, much less anywhere close to the degree usually exhibited by loanwords; it is distinguished for its foreignness. If this is a loanword, then any German word is a loanword. I think that's a bit nonsensical. (And considering the fact that this entire entry is about concerns over "classification," I think it matters to try and make it sensible!) Loanwords are words which are used as regular parts of the language which are taken directly from another language. Angst is a great example: it has its own meaning in English, to the point that most people are not aware it is actually a German word. Auf wiedersehen is not a loanword -- it is simply German. --Fastfission 22:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Despite that fair and lucid argument, I would still like to apply the category. I freely admit that it's not a great example of a loan word, but it still belongs in a category where people can find words that have come into English from German. My point is that we don't talk about "Aryan physics" or "Jewish physics", we talk about "Deutsche Physik", and that it is therefore, at least in some sense, a loan phrase. (The capital P doesn't sway it for me: we maintain foreign aspects of other loan words that would not normally occur in English - e.g. accents in rôle, façade, irregular plurals such as bureaux, genera - and this is no different.) I fear that we could end up splitting hairs about degrees of naturalisation. The first step will always be the use of a foreign phrase, then it will become more familiar, and eventually it will not be considered at all foreign. "Deutsche Physik" is on a lower rung of the naturalisation ladder than, say, "angst" or "poltergeist", but it's the same ladder.

I might add a notice to the category, stating that it contains not only true loan words but also German words that are commonly used in English. Would that be more satisfactory? --Stemonitis 08:03, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think miscategorizing it is not useful, and I'm not sure who would really benefit from this. I'm not sure who the "we" is who talk about Deutsche Physik -- historians talk about it but historians are usually comfortable with a number of languages (no naturalization). "Jewish physics" gets many more google hits than an English-only search for "Deutsche Physik". Which isn't authoratative (both have very low sample sizes, and the amount of overlap is likely very high). I think if one put a note on the loanwords page that "This page is for loanwords and other German phrases used in English writing" that would be fine though. Anyway I'm not going to really argue about it any more, I don't really think it matters that much either way. If it pleases you, feel free to do it, I've got no real reason to be snitty about it (it doesn't help me or anybody else!). --Fastfission 00:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to remove that category; it really isn't a loanword.--ragesoss 06:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relativity

The origins section of this article (and National Socialism) seems to conflate special and general relativty, speaking only of one Relativity and talking about rejections of Michelson-Morely and Eddington's observations as if they applied to the same theory.--ragesoss 06:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the anti-Einsteinians rejected both of them together; the real steam against Einstein didn't begin until the 1920s, after he had formulated both of them. I'm also fairly sure that they wrote about them in the same manner. --Fastfission 18:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought there might have been an issue like that, or I would have just changed it. Maybe the article should mention something about that.--ragesoss 20:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)