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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Why Germans are Great Inventors

Ever wondered why Germany is known for so many scientific and technical innovations? And about its excellent engineering products? (Scroll down to the bottom to get straight at the answer).
  • Germans make excellent cars (Benz, BMW, Volkswagen)
  • They invented the modern rocket (Verner Von Brown)
  • Movable type printing (Gutenberg)
  • Geigercounter-for measuring radioactivity (Hans Geiger)
  • The first functional program-controlled Computer (Konrad Zuse)
  • Uncertainty principle (Werner Heisenberg)
  • Theory of Relativity (Albert Einstein)
  • X-rays (Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen)
For a more complete list of German innovativeness, click the links at the bottom of this post.
Well, what forced this conclusion was a discussion on German grammar. I had been studying German for the past two months and its hair-splitting logic gave me the notion that the German society is very rule-based. This reflects the absolutely structured nature of their thought process.
For example, they distinguish between the state of repose of objects on the same platform. Suppose we have, on a table, a pen, a book, and a cup. Now in German, one has to specify like this:
The book and the pen lie on the table while the cup stands on the table.
Why do they distinguish like that ? The first two objects are horizontal whereas the cup is vertical. Now, if we were to turn the cup over on its side, so that it lies horizontally, we would have to say :the cup lies on the table.
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