List of German inventions and discoveries

The following list is composed of items, techniques and processes that were invented by or discovered by people from Germany or German-speaking Europe.

Anatomy

• Discovery of the Ampulla of Vater by Abraham Vater in 1720.
• First description of Auerbach's plexus by Leopold Auerbach (19th century).
• First description of Brodmann's areas by Korbinian Brodmann in 1909.
• First description of Crypts of Lieberkühn by Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn in 1745.
• First description of Duct of Wirsung by Johann Georg Wirsung.
• First description of Meissner's plexus and Tactile corpuscle by Georg Meissner.
• First description of Merkel cell by Friedrich Sigmund Merkel
• Discovery of the Alzheimer disease by Alois Alzheimer in 1906
• Discovery of Langerhans cell and Islets of Langerhans by Paul Langerhans
• Discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system by Theodor Schwann
• Discovery and study of pepsin by Theodor Schwann

Archaeology

Troy

• Troy by Heinrich Schliemann
• Hattusa by Hugo Winckler
• Deciphering of cuneiform by Georg Friedrich Grotefend
• Gordium by Gustav Körte and Alfred Körte

Arts

• Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
• Expressionism

Astronomy

Illustration of Kepler's second law

Neptune

• Cosmic ray by Theodor Wulf and Victor Hess
• Kepler's laws of planetary motion by Johannes Kepler
• Schwarzschild metric and Schwarzschild radius by Karl Schwarzschild
• Neptune by Johann Galle
• Uranus, with two of its major moons, (Titania and Oberon), by the British-German William Herschel

Biology and genetics

• Cell theory by Theodor Schwann, Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Rudolf Virchow
• Isolated the non-protein component of "nuclein", nucleic acid, and later isolated its five primary nucleobases by Albrecht Kossel
• Chromatography by Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge
• Humboldt penguin by Franz Meyen
• Humboldtian science by Alexander von Humboldt

Overview of the citric acid cycle (click to enlarge)

• Citric acid cycle and Urea cycle by Hans Adolf Krebs

Plateosaurus Skelett

• Plateosaurus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
• Rhamphorhynchus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
• Archaeopteryx by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
• Teratosaurus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
• Aegyptosaurus by Ernst Stromer
• Bahariasaurus by Ernst Stromer
• Carcharodontosaurus by Ernst Stromer
• Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, the largest known theropod, by Ernst Stromer
• Giant crocodilian Stomatosuchus by Ernst Stromer
• Alternation of generations by Wilhelm Hofmeister
• Mesonephros by Caspar Friedrich Wolff

A reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis.

• Homo heidelbergensis by Otto Schoetensack
• Neanderthal by Johann Carl Fuhlrott
• Recapitulation theory by Ernst Haeckel
• Weismann barrier by August Weismann
• Germ plasm by August Weismann
• Hardy–Weinberg principle by Wilhelm Weinberg
• Centrosome by Theodor Boveri
• determining the chemical composition of nucleic acids by Albrecht Kossel

File:Meiosis Overview.svg

Events involving meiosis, showing chromosomal crossover

• Meiosis by Oscar Hertwig.
• Mitosis by Hugo von Mohl
• Mitochondrion by Richard Altmann, 1894

Chemistry

• Glauber's salt by Johann Rudolf Glauber (German-Dutch alchemist and chemist) in 1625.
• Eupione by Carl Reichenbach.
• Paraffin wax was identified by Carl Reichenbach in 1830.
• Caesium by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff
• Rubidium by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff
• Protactinium by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner
• Indium by Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymous Theodor Richter in 1863-1864.
• Germanium by Clemens Winkler in 1886.
• Bohrium at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research between 1981 and 1996.
• Meitnerium at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research on August 29, 1982.
• Hassium at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in 1984.
• Darmstadtium by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg, under the direction of professor Sigurd Hofmann, on November 9, 1994, at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt.
• Roentgenium at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research on December 8, 1994.
• element Uranium, dicsovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth
• Zirconium by Martin Heinrich Klaproth
• Oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first) by Carl Wilhelm Scheele
• Identification of molybdenum, tungsten, barium, hydrogen and chlorine by Carl Wilhelm Scheele
• Phenol
• Pittacal
• Opioids including morphine, methadone, oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, nicomorphine, desomorphine, dihydrocodeine, dipropanoylmorphine, hydromorphinol, heterocodeine, and a number of others.
• Cocaine
• Amphetamines
• Barbiturates
• Methadone by Max Bockmühl and Gustav Ehrhart (IG Farben)
• Urea by Friedrich Wöhler in 1828
• Claus process by the chemist Carl Friedrich Claus, 1883
• Haber process by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch
• Paal–Knorr synthesis by Carl Paal and Ludwig Knorr

Bunsen burner

• Bunsen burner by Robert Bunsen
• Pinacol coupling reaction by Wilhelm Rudolph Fittig
• Ostwald process by Wilhelm Ostwald
• Diels–Alder reaction by Otto Diels and Kurt Alder
• Wittig reaction by Georg Wittig
• Coal liquefaction by Friedrich Bergius
• Büchner flask and Büchner funnel
• Erlenmeyer flask
• Petri dish
• Schlenk flask
• Prussian blue by Heinrich Diesbach
• Zyklon B by Walter Heerdt, Bruno Tesch, others, at Degesch
• Siemens cycle
• Ziegler–Natta catalyst by Karl Ziegler and Natta
• Styrene-butadiene (synthetic rubber) by Walter Bock
• Galalith by Wilhelm Krische
• Poly(methyl methacrylate) by Wilhelm Rudolph Fittig, 1877
• Polycarbonate by Alfred Einhorn, 1898
• Polyvinyl chloride by Eugen Baumann, 1872
• Polyethylene by Hans von Pechmann, 1898
• Polyurethane, by Otto Bayer, 1937
• Hampson–Linde cycle by Carl von Linde, 1895

Clothing and fashion

• Permanent wave by German born Karl Nessler
• Lederhosen
• Dirndl
• Tracht and Gamsbart

Computing

Replica of the Z1 in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin

• computer by Konrad Zuse
• Plankalkül by Konrad Zuse
• modern Binary numeral system
• MP3 by Karlheinz Brandenburg (with contributions from many other people) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• smart card by Jürgen Dethloff and Helmut Gröttrup

Construction and architecture

• Concrete pump by Max Giese

Drill scheme

• electrically-driven hand drill by Wilhelm Emil Fein
• Wire rope by Wilhelm Albert
• Breaker (hydraulic)
• portable electric and petrol chainsaw
• angle grinder

Cuisine

• Baumkuchen

A glass of Berliner Weisse flavoured with raspberry syrup

• Berliner Weisse
• Bienenstich
• Black Forest cake
• Bratwurst
• Braunschweiger

Currywurst

• Currywurst by Herta Heuwer
• Donauwelle
• Fanta
• Frankfurter Kranz
• Frankfurter Würstchen
• Gummy bear
• Hedgehog slice (Kalter Hund)
• Lebkuchen
• Meat extract by Justus von Liebig
• Obatzda
• Parboiled rice (Huzenlaub Process) by Erich Gustav Huzenlaub
• Pinkel
• Pretzel
• Prinzregententorte
• Pumpernickel

Pfälzer Saumagen

• Saumagen
• Strammer Max
• Stollen
• Streuselkuchen
• Teewurst
• Thuringian sausage

Toast Hawaii

• Toast Hawaii
• Welf pudding
• Zwieback
• Zwiebelkuchen

Education and printing

• Printing with movable type, by Johannes Gutenberg
• Kindergarten by Friedrich Fröbel
• Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
• Lithography by Alois Senefelder
• recyclable paper and deinking by Justus Claproth

Entertainment and media

• PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is a colour encoding system for analogue television by Walter Bruch, Telefunken
• Oscilloscope and cathode ray tube by Ferdinand Braun
• Nipkow disk by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow
• Short Message Service
• MP3

Geology and mining

• Mohs scale of mineral hardness by Friedrich Mohs in 1812 (one of several definitions of hardness in materials science).

Map of Pangaea with modern continents outlined

• Theory of continental drift (presented in 1912) and postulation of the existence of Pangaea by Alfred Wegener

Household and office appliance

• Paper Coffee filter
• Wigomat, the first Electrical drip coffee maker patented in 1954

Two-hole (filebinder) hole punch

• Hole punch by Friedrich Soennecken
• Ring binder by Friedrich Soennecken
• Glue stick by company Henkel
• Ink eraser by company Pelikan
• Adhesive tape by company Beiersdorfer
• Ingrain wallpaper by Hugo Erfurt

Mathematics

• Infinitesimal calculus by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Regional variations (English, German, Russian) of the integral symbol.

• Integral symbol by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• Leibniz's notation by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• Leibniz formula for π by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

surfaces of Gaussian curvature.

• Gaussian curvature by Carl Friedrich Gauss
• Gauss map by Carl Friedrich Gauss
• Gaussian elimination by Carl Friedrich Gauss
• Cantor–Bernstein–Schroeder theorem
• Cantor's theorem by Georg Cantor
• Cantor's first uncountability proof by Georg Cantor
• Cantor's diagonal argument by Georg Cantor

Illustration the intersection of two sets.

• Set theory by Georg Cantor
• Kepler conjecture by Johannes Kepler

Medicine

• Alzheimer's disease by Alois Alzheimer
• Morphine
• Prontosil by Gerhard Domagk
• Aspirin by Felix Hoffmann and Arthur Eichengrün
• Adhesive bandage by Paul Carl Beiersdorf
• Eucerit and Labello
• Pressure-sensitive tape by company Beiersdorf
• Cardiac catheterization by Werner Forssmann
• X-ray tube

Scanning electron micrograph of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

• tubercle bacillus by Robert Koch
• Vibrio cholerae by Robert Koch
• Koch's postulates by Robert Koch
• microscopic pathology by Rudolf Virchow
• diphtheria antitoxin by Emil Adolf von Behring
• Luria–Delbrück experiment by Max Delbrück (together with Luria)
• Arsphenamine by Paul Ehrlich (together with Hata)
• Intramedullary rod by Gerhard Küntscher
• Alcohol thermometer by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
• Homeopathy, conceived by Samuel Hahnemann
• Electroencephalography for humans, by Hans Berger, 1924. Berger discovered Alpha waves
• Discovery and description of Graves-Basedow disease by Karl Adolph von Basedow (also Graves)
• Chain Osteotome by Bernhard Heine
• Glass Contact lenses by Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick
• Discovery of the organism causing diphtheria (Corynebacterium diphtheriae), Löffler's medium and the cause of Foot-and-mouth disease (Aphthovirus) by Friedrich Loeffler.

Military

• The modern flamethrower by Richard Fiedler in 1901.
• Submachine gun(MP 18 by Theodor Bergmann)
• The modern assault rifle

Replica of V2

• Cruise missile : V-1 flying bomb
• Ballistic missile : A-4, known as the V-2 rocket in the 1940s under direction of Wernher von Braun.
• Rifling
• Dreyse needle gun by Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse
• Rocket-powered aircraft, the Lippisch Ente in 1928.
• Mass-produced rocket-powered aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1944
• Brandtaucher by Wilhelm Bauer
• Ani-tank missile
• Anti-tank grenade
• Anti-tank rifle: Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr

Musical instruments

• Wagner tuba by Richard Wagner in the 1850s (inspired by Adolphe Sax).
• Accordion
• Bandoneon by Heinrich Band
• Glockenspiel, invented either in Germany (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) or in the County of Hainaut (now Belgium) in the 18th century.
• Gramophone record by Emil Berliner
• Clarinet by Johann Christoph Denner
• Harmonica by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann

Physics

• first telephone transmitter in 1861 by Johann Philipp Reis, he also invented the term telephone.
• Deinking by Justus Claproth
• Geissler tube by Heinrich Geißler
• Planck constant by Max Planck
• Planck's law by Max Planck
• Refractometer by Ernst Abbe in 1874.
• Scanning tunneling microscope by Gerd Binnig (German) and Heinrich Rohrer (Swiss) (at IBM Zürich) .
• Stark effect by Johannes Stark
• Stark spectroscopy by Johannes Stark
• Electron microscope
• Nuclear isomerism by Otto Hahn
• Nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann
• Geiger–Müller tube by Hans Geiger and Walther Müller

Geiger-Müller Counter

• Geiger–Müller counter by Hans Geiger
• Photoelectric effect by Albert Einstein

4-meter-tall sculpture of Einstein's 1905 E = mc² formula at the 2006 Walk of Ideas, Berlin, Germany.

• Mass–energy equivalence by Albert Einstein
• General relativity by Albert Einstein
• Special relativity by Albert Einstein
• Bose–Einstein statistics, Bose–Einstein condensate and Boson by Albert Einstein (together with Bose)

X-rays are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths shorter than visible light. Different applications use different parts of the X-ray spectrum.

• x-ray by Wilhelm Röntgen
• Noether's theorem by Emmy Noether
• Nuclear shell model by Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen
• Quantum Hall effect by Klaus von Klitzing
• Giant magnetoresistance by Peter Grünberg (together with Albert Fert)
• Anode ray by Eugen Goldstein
• Ohm's law by Georg Ohm
• vacuum pump and Magdeburg hemispheres by Otto von Guericke
• Radio waves and Electromagnetic radiation by Heinrich Hertz
• Nernst lamp by Walther Nernst
• Wien approximation and Wien's displacement law by Wilhelm Wien
• Ultraviolet by Johann Wilhelm Ritter
• electromagnetic and radio waves, discovered by Heinrich Hertz
• Barkhausen effect and Barkhausen stability criterion by Heinrich Barkhausen
• Echo sounding by Alexander Behm. The patent was granted in 1913.
• Betz's law by Albert Betz, 1913

Sociology, philosophy and politics

• Marxism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
• Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietsche
• Verstehen by Max Weber
• Critical theory and Frankfurter School
• (Health insurance), 1883: Krankenversicherung
• Accident insurance, 1884 Unfallversicherung
• Pension insurance, Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung, 1889

Religion and ethics

• Christmas tree

Wreath with two candles lit for the second Sunday of Advent

• Advent wreath by Johann Hinrich Wichern
• Advent calendar

Easterbunny

• Easter Bunny
• Protestantism and Lutheranism : in 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian priest, published The Ninety-Five Theses.
• Plastination by Gunther von Hagens
• Kantianism by Immanuel Kant
• German idealism

Science

• Bark scale by Eberhard Zwicker in 1961. It is named after Heinrich Barkhausen.
• Bergius process by Friedrich Bergius in 1913.
• Richter magnitude scale by Beno Gutenberg (together with Charles Francis Richter)
• Fahrenheit, temperature scale by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

Scientific instruments

• Stauroscope by Wolfgang Franz von Kobell in 1855.
• laboratory refractometer, the Abbe refractometer by Ernst Abbe
• Metal detector by Fischer
• Fahrenheit hydrometer by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
• Abbe refractometer by Ernst Abbe

Spaceflight

• Liquid-propellant rocket by Wernher von Braun
• V-2

Sport

• Elfmeter in football by Karl Wald
• modern football boots with screw-in studs by Adolf Dassler
• horizontal bar and Parallel bars by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
• Wheel gymnastics by Otto Feick

Tourism and recreation

• Strandkorb
• Carabiner for climbing by Otto Herzog
• cruise ship by Albert Ballin (cruise ship Prinzessin Victoria Luise)

Toys

• Playmobil
• first home video console Magnavox Odyssey
• Mensch ärgere dich nicht game board
• Skat, Doppelkopf and Schafkopf, card game

The fischertechnik

• Fischertechnik
• The Settlers of Catan
• Plastilin, patented by Franz Kolb, 1880

Transportation

automobile Benz Velo

• Modern automobile (gasoline engine) by Karl Benz in 1885.
• Motorcycle by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach (Daimler Reitwagen in 1885)
• Helicopter the first operational and practical helicopter was the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 developed the Focke-Achgelis company.
• Internal combustion engine buses
• first electric passenger train by Siemens
• first regular electric tram service using pantographs or trolley poles, the Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway by Siemens
• first aircraft with a turbojet by Hans von Ohain
• Otto engine by Nicolaus Otto
• Diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel
• Wankel engine by Felix Wankel
• Modern truck in 1896 by Gottlieb Daimler
• Zeppelin (a type of rigid airship) by Ferdinand von Zeppelin in 1893.
• Rocket-powered aircraft by Fritz Stamer in 1928.
• Air bag by Walter Linderer
• World's first practical all-metal aircraft: Junkers J 1
• Jerrycan
• Gyrocompass by Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe
• Defogger by Heinz Kunert
• Krueger flap by Werner Krüger
• Taximeter by Friedrich Wilhelm Gustav Bruhn
• Tachometer by Diedrich Uhlhorn
• Spoiler
• Filling station
• Carburetor
• Diesel fuel
• Biodiesel
• Gasoline

See also

• German inventors and discoverers