Galileo Facing the Roman Inquisition, by Cristiano Banti, 1857, oil on canvas / University of Missouri, Creative Commons
Listen to Podcast
Gallileo, green eggs and ‘German’ science
Have you heard the one about the bad scientists who called the good scientists’ science bad science? Like so many historical goings-on recorded since recording became a thing, this episode is just one more preposterous example of an inalienable truth that improves our understanding of the world, and hence the progress of humanity, being attacked in favour of the narrow and partisan beliefs of a toxic cult. It’s an old trick, attacking the messengers and demonising the advocates of scientific sense to defend the indefensible. We can see it among some national leaders today in their response to the threat of Covid-19, or among anti-vaccination groups and climate change deniers.
The bad scientists were Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark; Nobel laureates no less, who would, for example, deny Einstein’s theory of relativity because he was Jewish. Astonishingly, Lenard and Stark rejected E=mc2 along with the rest of progressive Jewish science, which they believed was in direct contradiction to the unsullied and honest Teutonic mind; ergo, it was unnationalistic in their pernicious understanding of the term. All those fancy formulae extrapolating the ground-breaking and mind-blowing relativity and quantum theory that have helped to shape our modern world, were a bit too shifty for the fanatics that were Lenard and Stark. But the offensive duo did not have universal support. Like a pair of more sinister Sam-I-Am Doppelgangers, they forced their ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on an increasingly troubled German scientific community.
In his book, Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler, Philip Ball asks several important questions about the absurdity of evaluating scientific work based on the religious affiliations or social and ethical beliefs of the scientists. Surely this is a most unscientific approach from scientists who have themselves been recipients of Nobel awards. There must be something else at play then. Here are a few of Philip Ball’s questions: “… how could a scientific theory be objectionable? How could one even develop a pseudo-moralistic position on a notion that was objectively right or wrong? Besides, hadn’t Einstein’s relativity been proven? What did it even mean to say that science could be subverted by the “Jewish spirit”?”
Now you are beginning to realise that both Lenard and Stark had a severe case of racist bigotry, proving that not all theoretical physicists are geniuses. These German gentlemen were anti-Semitic, anti-relativist, anti-quantum theory Nazis. They did not have a world view; they had a German view, or more accurately, a jingoistic German view. In 1936, Lenard published the ridiculous tome: Deutsche Physik[1]. In the preface, he broadened the definition of Deutsche Physik to Aryan or Nordic physics. He unscientifically postulated that approaches to the practice of science were determined by race. He was a veteran of this claptrap though; back in 1924, he and Stark co-authored a praise of Hitler and his henchmen, who they described as, ‘God’s gift from times of old when races were purer, people were greater, and minds were less deluded.’ Lenard and Stark only had time for the science practiced by the ‘old race’ – go figure – and held a special contempt for what they called Jewish science, practiced apparently by those who could not trace their lineage back to the primordial dawn of civilization. Supporters of German physics espoused their diatribe in their preferred publication - Journal for All Science [Zeitschrift für die gesamte Naturwissenschaft] – a kind of Breitbart of its day.
Three hundred years earlier, Galileo, the ‘Father of Modern Science’ had to deal with Lenard and Stark types. Galileo[1] supported the 1543 theory of Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. What helped Galileo to nail the Copernican theory was his perseverance in mastering his new-fangled telescope. When he turned it towards the sky the true picture emerged, one though, that would not be accepted by the Catholic church. This new-fangled telescope then, was almost Galileo’s undoing. In 1610, what he saw through that telescope confirmed what Copernicus believed; not the best of news if you were a practicing Catholic living in a Catholic country. What Galileo saw upended the established order originally set out by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, and subsequently, and doubtless conveniently, adopted by the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly then, Aristotle became the Church’s philosopher of choice. Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 BC, believed the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the Sun, Moon, planets, and all the fixed stars revolved around it. This earth centric theory fitted in perfectly with Catholic doctrine, and that’s how an ancient Greek philosopher came to be such a pivotal player in Catholic theology. A heliocentric belief, on the other hand, whereby the sun is seen as the centre of the universe, demoted planet earth to being a bit-part player and promoted the sun to kingpin – not a belief that could be tolerated by the church, despite the overwhelming and convincing scientific evidence. In other words, Galileo established once and for all what many scientists had long suspected, the sun is the centre of the universe, and not the earth. This heliocentric belief pretty much negated Holy Scripture, and burnt a hole of indignation into the hearts and minds of those prickly Inquisition chaps. Like the Nazis, four hundred years later, the Inquisition had ways of making you squeal.
Here’s the background then, to the Galileo affair. In 1616, Galileo wrote a letter to a student explaining how Copernicus’ theory of the sun being the centre of the universe – also known as heliocentrism (Helios being the Greek word for sun) did not contradict the Bible. The letter was made public and the Inquisition chaps pronounced Copernican theory heretical. Galileo was ordered not to ‘hold, teach, or defend in any manner’ this theory. He obeyed the order until 1623 when his buddy, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, was selected as Pope Urban VIII. Urban allowed Galileo to pursue his work on the condition that it did not advocate Copernican theory. In 1632, Galileo published the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. This work took the form of a discussion among three people: one who supports Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the universe, one who argues against it, and one who remains impartial. Although Galileo insisted the book was neutral, let’s just note that the character who argues in defence of Aristotle, and consequently the Church, is called ‘Simplicio’ and is portrayed as quite the dullard. Galileo had overstepped the mark and incensed his papal buddy, who had granted him some latitude back in 1623.
Now elderly and infirm, he was summoned to appear before the Roman Inquisition. Though in fairness, if that’s the right word, Galileo was treated well during the proceedings. He was not dragged in chains from a fetid dungeon every day; he stayed in the home of a compassionate Tuscan ambassador. But the Church had to be the winner of this show trial and Team Inquisition had to devise a winning plan; they threatened Galileo with torture. Thoughts of being put to the rack or branded with hot irons had that instant volte face affect.
Torture, or the threat of torture, has rarely elicited useful information. When Galileo ‘admitted’ under threat of torture that he was strangely ‘mistaken’ in his belief that the earth and all other known planets orbit the sun, it was a ludicrous scene; Galileo still didn’t believe the earth was the centre of the universe, neither did many of those cardinals and bishops who listened to his staged confession. In Nazi Germany, most physicists – even supporters of the regime – could not countenance rejecting relativity and quantum theory, but instead rejected the irrational balderdash of Lenard and Stark. They had to be extremely politic and careful about rejecting the anti-Semitic pseudo-science of Lenard and Stark though in order to keep themselves out of trouble with the authorities. But fake science continues to prevail. In a March 2019 National Law Review article entitled “Alternative Facts” in the Classroom: Creationist Educational Policy and the Trump Administration, Megan Elizabeth Sullivan reports that bills permitting the teaching of “creation science” in public schools continue to appear in state legislatures across the United States.
But can you replace good science with bad science, or real news with fake news? The answer is you can’t. You can huff and puff and bluff when you are a member of the ‘party’ and have state endorsement, but that won’t make your science better or your alternative facts true; it will only make them ‘official’. In 2016, when Press Secretary, Sean Spicer told the White House press corps that more people attended President Trump’s inauguration than President Obama’s, or, for that matter, any inauguration in the history of inaugurations – ever, Spicer did not believe it, neither did anybody in the audience. We all saw the live footage. We can see how well ‘official’ is working today in countries like North Korea and Belarus. We continue to learn how ‘official’ works in the United States Trump administration. But to return to 1930s Germany then, ‘Deutsche’ or German physics would only be entertained in a country that was inward looking, highly nationalistic and deluded by a superiority complex.
Galileo was convicted of heresy and spent his remaining years under house arrest. But you can’t supress good work once people know about it. His books were printed in France and Holland, and he continued to write. Over time, the Church would lift its bans on works supporting the theories of Copernicus, and drop its opposition to heliocentrism. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised for the Church’s treatment of Galileo.
Lenard, Stark and their nationalistic science buddies did try to replace that darned complicated Jewish relativity and quantum theory with some good old Aryan physics. They wanted to replace what they believed to be nebulous, inaccessible, formulaic mumbo jumbo with good, clean, simple, wholesome, understandable physics based on that uniquely German intuition. Danish historian Helge Kragh[1], in his book Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century, adds romantic to the list. He says, ‘Basically, the Aryan physicists were antimoderns and romanticists, who longed for a return to a physics based on experiments and simple, understandable theory in agreement with intuition.’ For them, it was all about visualisation and a personalised dialogue with nature where the answer would metaphorically fall on your head (like Newton’s supposed apple perhaps?); something strangely that Aryan physicists, in Lernard and Stark’s estimation at any rate, could do, and which Jewish physicists could not do. I don’t know though, my eyes are shut so tight they hurt and yet I cannot conjure up an image of Lenard, Stark, Wordsworth, Blake, Beethoven, Schumann, and Turner at a Romantic mash-up.
Advanced mathematical approaches – dark arts practiced by Jewish physicists, would, Lenard and Stark believed, lead to tarnished science. And talk about age-old racist stereotyping; one of Lernard’s students, a buffoon by the name of Alfons Bühl, described the mystical sums as practiced by Jewish physicists thus: ‘This exceedingly mathematical treatment of physical problems had undoubtedly arisen from the Jewish spirit …. Just as he [the Jew] otherwise – as in business – always has only the numerical, the credit and debit calculation before his eyes, so it must be designated as a typical racial characteristic even in physics that he places mathematical formulation in the foreground.’ Back to Kragh then, ‘Lenard and his like believed that physics was truth-seeking, and that truth could be obtained only through experiments combined with mental images of reality.’ Remember, they held the view that there were different forms of physics depending on your race and nationality. These views fitted perfectly with the ideologies expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kamph, and Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts [The Myth of the Twentieth Century] which firmly placed Aryans in the vanguard of humankind. Indeed, the most dangerous thing you could throw at Aryan physicists who disagreed with Deutsche Physik was an accusation of ‘thinking’ or ‘acting’ Jewish; a label like this could threaten you with the same persecution real Jews faced; not something you wanted when Heinrich Himmler was chief of police with Heydrich as his sadist sidekick. Supporters of Deutsche Physik could ramp up the fear for non-Jewish physicists who insisted on supporting Einstein’s theory of relativity by calling them ‘the spirit of Einstein’s spirit’. When it came to name calling in Nazi Germany, this was up there; this was blacklist central.
Back to Helge Kragh then. He says, ‘Lenard and his like believed that physics was truth-seeking, and that truth could be obtained only through experiments combined with mental images of reality.’ Remember, that these Nazi scientists held the view that there were different forms of physics depending on your race and nationality. These views fitted perfectly with the ideologies expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kamph, and Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century an appalling publication which firmly placed Aryans in the vanguard of humankind. To quote from Britannica.com: “According to Rosenberg, the Germans descended from a Nordic race that derived its character from its environment: a pure, cold, semi-Arctic continent, now disappeared. The Germans, as representatives of this race, were entitled to dominate Europe. Their enemies were “Russian Tartars” and “Semites.” The latter included Jews, the Latin peoples, and Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. Rosenberg’s anti-Semitism and advocacy of “Nordic” expansionism gave a certain order and direction to Hitler’s own violent prejudices.” At the Nürnberg trials Rosenberg was convicted as a war criminal and was hanged.
But back to the hard science, or more accurately, the ruinous racial classification of science; the most dangerous thing you could throw at Aryan physicists who disagreed with Deutsche Physik was an accusation of ‘thinking’ or ‘acting’ Jewish; a label like this could threaten you with the same persecution real Jews faced; not something you wanted when Heinrich Himmler was chief of police with Heydrich as his sadist sidekick, a major player in the ‘Final Solution’ to exterminate millions of Jews with Zyklon-B in the gas chambers of concentration camps. Supporters of Deutsche Physik could ramp up the fear for non-Jewish physicists who insisted on supporting Einstein’s theory of relativity by calling them ‘the spirit of Einstein’s spirit’. When it came to name calling in Nazi Germany, this was up there; this was blacklist central. But perhaps most importantly though, Philip Ball says, “the story explodes the comforting myth that science offers insulation against profound irrationality and extremism.”
Lenard and Stark were control freaks; they wanted to control physics in Germany and this meant controlling all academic appointments in physics. By the end of 1939, six supporters of Deutsche Physik had been appointed professors at German universities. Laughably, a Nazi and old school anti-relativist with no knowledge of modern physics was appointed professor of theoretical physics at Munich. This would be like appointing a witch doctor to head up the neurosurgery department in a medical school, or a climate change denier as Head of an Environmental Protection Agency. But hold on a minute, President Trump’s appointee to head up the US Environment Protection Agency is a former coal industry lobbyist who downplays global warming and climate change. The presence of intellectual giants of the stature of Werner Heisenberg[1] and Max Planck who were supporters of Einstein, was becoming more fragile in German universities; but simultaneously, the position of Lenard and Stark was looking more and more ridiculous.
There followed a rush of memos, political manoeuvrings, lobbying and heated debate among all the players. It ended with seventy-five physicists signing a petition in defence of the theory of relativity and quantum theory. Lenard and Stark were side-lined – it didn’t help that Stark had overspent on a project that followed the trail of a crazy Teutonic myth that there was gold to be extracted from south German heaths.
Bad scientists and their relatively few supporters only threaten good science when they have official support. Their time in the sun is transitory; a small group of crackpots holding power for a short time. And today, the leader of the free world has gathered around him a motley crew; some apparently, climate change deniers, creationists, gay conversion therapy sympathisers, and supporters of gun-toting white supremacists. For how long will this small group of crackpots hold power?
G is for Galileo who moved the sun centre stage; g is for God, who must have been delighted with this discovery; G is for ‘Green Eggs’, as unpalatable as the short-lived era of ‘German Science’.
Bibliography
Ball, P. Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler. 2013. University of Chicago Press.
Cassidy, D. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. 1992. W. H. Freeman and Co.
Heilbron, J. L. Galileo. 2010. Oxford University Press & Drake, S. Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. 1978. The University of Chicago Press.
Kragh, H. Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century. 1999. Princeton University Press.
Sullivan, M. E. “Alternative Facts” in the Classroom: Creationist Educational Policy and the Trump Administration. March 2019 National Law Review - https://www.natlawreview.com/article/alternative-facts-classroom-creationist-educational-policy-and-trump-administration
Listen to Podcast
Gallileo, green eggs and ‘German’ science
Have you heard the one about the bad scientists who called the good scientists’ science bad science? Like so many historical goings-on recorded since recording became a thing, this episode is just one more preposterous example of an inalienable truth that improves our understanding of the world, and hence the progress of humanity, being attacked in favour of the narrow and partisan beliefs of a toxic cult. It’s an old trick, attacking the messengers and demonising the advocates of scientific sense to defend the indefensible. We can see it among some national leaders today in their response to the threat of Covid-19, or among anti-vaccination groups and climate change deniers.
The bad scientists were Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark; Nobel laureates no less, who would, for example, deny Einstein’s theory of relativity because he was Jewish. Astonishingly, Lenard and Stark rejected E=mc2 along with the rest of progressive Jewish science, which they believed was in direct contradiction to the unsullied and honest Teutonic mind; ergo, it was unnationalistic in their pernicious understanding of the term. All those fancy formulae extrapolating the ground-breaking and mind-blowing relativity and quantum theory that have helped to shape our modern world, were a bit too shifty for the fanatics that were Lenard and Stark. But the offensive duo did not have universal support. Like a pair of more sinister Sam-I-Am Doppelgangers, they forced their ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on an increasingly troubled German scientific community.
In his book, Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler, Philip Ball asks several important questions about the absurdity of evaluating scientific work based on the religious affiliations or social and ethical beliefs of the scientists. Surely this is a most unscientific approach from scientists who have themselves been recipients of Nobel awards. There must be something else at play then. Here are a few of Philip Ball’s questions: “… how could a scientific theory be objectionable? How could one even develop a pseudo-moralistic position on a notion that was objectively right or wrong? Besides, hadn’t Einstein’s relativity been proven? What did it even mean to say that science could be subverted by the “Jewish spirit”?”
Now you are beginning to realise that both Lenard and Stark had a severe case of racist bigotry, proving that not all theoretical physicists are geniuses. These German gentlemen were anti-Semitic, anti-relativist, anti-quantum theory Nazis. They did not have a world view; they had a German view, or more accurately, a jingoistic German view. In 1936, Lenard published the ridiculous tome: Deutsche Physik[1]. In the preface, he broadened the definition of Deutsche Physik to Aryan or Nordic physics. He unscientifically postulated that approaches to the practice of science were determined by race. He was a veteran of this claptrap though; back in 1924, he and Stark co-authored a praise of Hitler and his henchmen, who they described as, ‘God’s gift from times of old when races were purer, people were greater, and minds were less deluded.’ Lenard and Stark only had time for the science practiced by the ‘old race’ – go figure – and held a special contempt for what they called Jewish science, practiced apparently by those who could not trace their lineage back to the primordial dawn of civilization. Supporters of German physics espoused their diatribe in their preferred publication - Journal for All Science [Zeitschrift für die gesamte Naturwissenschaft] – a kind of Breitbart of its day.
Three hundred years earlier, Galileo, the ‘Father of Modern Science’ had to deal with Lenard and Stark types. Galileo[1] supported the 1543 theory of Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. What helped Galileo to nail the Copernican theory was his perseverance in mastering his new-fangled telescope. When he turned it towards the sky the true picture emerged, one though, that would not be accepted by the Catholic church. This new-fangled telescope then, was almost Galileo’s undoing. In 1610, what he saw through that telescope confirmed what Copernicus believed; not the best of news if you were a practicing Catholic living in a Catholic country. What Galileo saw upended the established order originally set out by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, and subsequently, and doubtless conveniently, adopted by the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly then, Aristotle became the Church’s philosopher of choice. Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 BC, believed the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the Sun, Moon, planets, and all the fixed stars revolved around it. This earth centric theory fitted in perfectly with Catholic doctrine, and that’s how an ancient Greek philosopher came to be such a pivotal player in Catholic theology. A heliocentric belief, on the other hand, whereby the sun is seen as the centre of the universe, demoted planet earth to being a bit-part player and promoted the sun to kingpin – not a belief that could be tolerated by the church, despite the overwhelming and convincing scientific evidence. In other words, Galileo established once and for all what many scientists had long suspected, the sun is the centre of the universe, and not the earth. This heliocentric belief pretty much negated Holy Scripture, and burnt a hole of indignation into the hearts and minds of those prickly Inquisition chaps. Like the Nazis, four hundred years later, the Inquisition had ways of making you squeal.
Here’s the background then, to the Galileo affair. In 1616, Galileo wrote a letter to a student explaining how Copernicus’ theory of the sun being the centre of the universe – also known as heliocentrism (Helios being the Greek word for sun) did not contradict the Bible. The letter was made public and the Inquisition chaps pronounced Copernican theory heretical. Galileo was ordered not to ‘hold, teach, or defend in any manner’ this theory. He obeyed the order until 1623 when his buddy, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, was selected as Pope Urban VIII. Urban allowed Galileo to pursue his work on the condition that it did not advocate Copernican theory. In 1632, Galileo published the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. This work took the form of a discussion among three people: one who supports Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the universe, one who argues against it, and one who remains impartial. Although Galileo insisted the book was neutral, let’s just note that the character who argues in defence of Aristotle, and consequently the Church, is called ‘Simplicio’ and is portrayed as quite the dullard. Galileo had overstepped the mark and incensed his papal buddy, who had granted him some latitude back in 1623.
Now elderly and infirm, he was summoned to appear before the Roman Inquisition. Though in fairness, if that’s the right word, Galileo was treated well during the proceedings. He was not dragged in chains from a fetid dungeon every day; he stayed in the home of a compassionate Tuscan ambassador. But the Church had to be the winner of this show trial and Team Inquisition had to devise a winning plan; they threatened Galileo with torture. Thoughts of being put to the rack or branded with hot irons had that instant volte face affect.
Torture, or the threat of torture, has rarely elicited useful information. When Galileo ‘admitted’ under threat of torture that he was strangely ‘mistaken’ in his belief that the earth and all other known planets orbit the sun, it was a ludicrous scene; Galileo still didn’t believe the earth was the centre of the universe, neither did many of those cardinals and bishops who listened to his staged confession. In Nazi Germany, most physicists – even supporters of the regime – could not countenance rejecting relativity and quantum theory, but instead rejected the irrational balderdash of Lenard and Stark. They had to be extremely politic and careful about rejecting the anti-Semitic pseudo-science of Lenard and Stark though in order to keep themselves out of trouble with the authorities. But fake science continues to prevail. In a March 2019 National Law Review article entitled “Alternative Facts” in the Classroom: Creationist Educational Policy and the Trump Administration, Megan Elizabeth Sullivan reports that bills permitting the teaching of “creation science” in public schools continue to appear in state legislatures across the United States.
But can you replace good science with bad science, or real news with fake news? The answer is you can’t. You can huff and puff and bluff when you are a member of the ‘party’ and have state endorsement, but that won’t make your science better or your alternative facts true; it will only make them ‘official’. In 2016, when Press Secretary, Sean Spicer told the White House press corps that more people attended President Trump’s inauguration than President Obama’s, or, for that matter, any inauguration in the history of inaugurations – ever, Spicer did not believe it, neither did anybody in the audience. We all saw the live footage. We can see how well ‘official’ is working today in countries like North Korea and Belarus. We continue to learn how ‘official’ works in the United States Trump administration. But to return to 1930s Germany then, ‘Deutsche’ or German physics would only be entertained in a country that was inward looking, highly nationalistic and deluded by a superiority complex.
Galileo was convicted of heresy and spent his remaining years under house arrest. But you can’t supress good work once people know about it. His books were printed in France and Holland, and he continued to write. Over time, the Church would lift its bans on works supporting the theories of Copernicus, and drop its opposition to heliocentrism. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised for the Church’s treatment of Galileo.
Lenard, Stark and their nationalistic science buddies did try to replace that darned complicated Jewish relativity and quantum theory with some good old Aryan physics. They wanted to replace what they believed to be nebulous, inaccessible, formulaic mumbo jumbo with good, clean, simple, wholesome, understandable physics based on that uniquely German intuition. Danish historian Helge Kragh[1], in his book Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century, adds romantic to the list. He says, ‘Basically, the Aryan physicists were antimoderns and romanticists, who longed for a return to a physics based on experiments and simple, understandable theory in agreement with intuition.’ For them, it was all about visualisation and a personalised dialogue with nature where the answer would metaphorically fall on your head (like Newton’s supposed apple perhaps?); something strangely that Aryan physicists, in Lernard and Stark’s estimation at any rate, could do, and which Jewish physicists could not do. I don’t know though, my eyes are shut so tight they hurt and yet I cannot conjure up an image of Lenard, Stark, Wordsworth, Blake, Beethoven, Schumann, and Turner at a Romantic mash-up.
Advanced mathematical approaches – dark arts practiced by Jewish physicists, would, Lenard and Stark believed, lead to tarnished science. And talk about age-old racist stereotyping; one of Lernard’s students, a buffoon by the name of Alfons Bühl, described the mystical sums as practiced by Jewish physicists thus: ‘This exceedingly mathematical treatment of physical problems had undoubtedly arisen from the Jewish spirit …. Just as he [the Jew] otherwise – as in business – always has only the numerical, the credit and debit calculation before his eyes, so it must be designated as a typical racial characteristic even in physics that he places mathematical formulation in the foreground.’ Back to Kragh then, ‘Lenard and his like believed that physics was truth-seeking, and that truth could be obtained only through experiments combined with mental images of reality.’ Remember, they held the view that there were different forms of physics depending on your race and nationality. These views fitted perfectly with the ideologies expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kamph, and Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts [The Myth of the Twentieth Century] which firmly placed Aryans in the vanguard of humankind. Indeed, the most dangerous thing you could throw at Aryan physicists who disagreed with Deutsche Physik was an accusation of ‘thinking’ or ‘acting’ Jewish; a label like this could threaten you with the same persecution real Jews faced; not something you wanted when Heinrich Himmler was chief of police with Heydrich as his sadist sidekick. Supporters of Deutsche Physik could ramp up the fear for non-Jewish physicists who insisted on supporting Einstein’s theory of relativity by calling them ‘the spirit of Einstein’s spirit’. When it came to name calling in Nazi Germany, this was up there; this was blacklist central.
Back to Helge Kragh then. He says, ‘Lenard and his like believed that physics was truth-seeking, and that truth could be obtained only through experiments combined with mental images of reality.’ Remember, that these Nazi scientists held the view that there were different forms of physics depending on your race and nationality. These views fitted perfectly with the ideologies expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kamph, and Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century an appalling publication which firmly placed Aryans in the vanguard of humankind. To quote from Britannica.com: “According to Rosenberg, the Germans descended from a Nordic race that derived its character from its environment: a pure, cold, semi-Arctic continent, now disappeared. The Germans, as representatives of this race, were entitled to dominate Europe. Their enemies were “Russian Tartars” and “Semites.” The latter included Jews, the Latin peoples, and Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. Rosenberg’s anti-Semitism and advocacy of “Nordic” expansionism gave a certain order and direction to Hitler’s own violent prejudices.” At the Nürnberg trials Rosenberg was convicted as a war criminal and was hanged.
But back to the hard science, or more accurately, the ruinous racial classification of science; the most dangerous thing you could throw at Aryan physicists who disagreed with Deutsche Physik was an accusation of ‘thinking’ or ‘acting’ Jewish; a label like this could threaten you with the same persecution real Jews faced; not something you wanted when Heinrich Himmler was chief of police with Heydrich as his sadist sidekick, a major player in the ‘Final Solution’ to exterminate millions of Jews with Zyklon-B in the gas chambers of concentration camps. Supporters of Deutsche Physik could ramp up the fear for non-Jewish physicists who insisted on supporting Einstein’s theory of relativity by calling them ‘the spirit of Einstein’s spirit’. When it came to name calling in Nazi Germany, this was up there; this was blacklist central. But perhaps most importantly though, Philip Ball says, “the story explodes the comforting myth that science offers insulation against profound irrationality and extremism.”
Lenard and Stark were control freaks; they wanted to control physics in Germany and this meant controlling all academic appointments in physics. By the end of 1939, six supporters of Deutsche Physik had been appointed professors at German universities. Laughably, a Nazi and old school anti-relativist with no knowledge of modern physics was appointed professor of theoretical physics at Munich. This would be like appointing a witch doctor to head up the neurosurgery department in a medical school, or a climate change denier as Head of an Environmental Protection Agency. But hold on a minute, President Trump’s appointee to head up the US Environment Protection Agency is a former coal industry lobbyist who downplays global warming and climate change. The presence of intellectual giants of the stature of Werner Heisenberg[1] and Max Planck who were supporters of Einstein, was becoming more fragile in German universities; but simultaneously, the position of Lenard and Stark was looking more and more ridiculous.
There followed a rush of memos, political manoeuvrings, lobbying and heated debate among all the players. It ended with seventy-five physicists signing a petition in defence of the theory of relativity and quantum theory. Lenard and Stark were side-lined – it didn’t help that Stark had overspent on a project that followed the trail of a crazy Teutonic myth that there was gold to be extracted from south German heaths.
Bad scientists and their relatively few supporters only threaten good science when they have official support. Their time in the sun is transitory; a small group of crackpots holding power for a short time. And today, the leader of the free world has gathered around him a motley crew; some apparently, climate change deniers, creationists, gay conversion therapy sympathisers, and supporters of gun-toting white supremacists. For how long will this small group of crackpots hold power?
G is for Galileo who moved the sun centre stage; g is for God, who must have been delighted with this discovery; G is for ‘Green Eggs’, as unpalatable as the short-lived era of ‘German Science’.
Bibliography
Ball, P. Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler. 2013. University of Chicago Press.
Cassidy, D. Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg. 1992. W. H. Freeman and Co.
Heilbron, J. L. Galileo. 2010. Oxford University Press & Drake, S. Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. 1978. The University of Chicago Press.
Kragh, H. Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century. 1999. Princeton University Press.
Sullivan, M. E. “Alternative Facts” in the Classroom: Creationist Educational Policy and the Trump Administration. March 2019 National Law Review - https://www.natlawreview.com/article/alternative-facts-classroom-creationist-educational-policy-and-trump-administration
