Annus mirabilis

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Annus mirabilis ( Latin for miracle year ) is used to denote years of special inventions and discoveries, especially when several significant events occur in the same year. Here are some examples of anni mirabiles:

1665/1666 (Isaac Newton)

In the 19th century, the period from 1665 to 1666, when Isaac Newton fled back to his hometown Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth from the plague , was retrospectively referred to as annus mirabilis, as it was during that time that he developed classical mechanics and made revolutionary discoveries Analysis , kinetics, optics and gravitation . He himself wrote:

"All this was in the two plague years 1665 and 1666, for in those days I was in the prime of my age of invention, and minded mathematics and philosophy more than at any time since."

"All of this was in the two plague years of 1665 and 1666, because in those days I was in the prime of my inventive age, and thought about mathematics and philosophy more than at any time since then"

- Isaac Newton

1666 (John Dryden)

John Dryden was inspired by the miraculous containment of the Great Fire of London to write the poem "annus mirabilis" , which suddenly made him famous and which in 1666 brought the name annus mirabilis at the time .

1794/95 (annus mirabilis jenensis)

In Jena met this year Goethe , Schiller , Fichte , Wilhelm von Humboldt , Hölderlin and Sophie Mereau each other. The American literary scholar Theodore Ziolkowski summarized this in 1998 in the term “annus mirabilis jenensis” - the Jena year of miracles.

1905 (Albert Einstein)

The year 1905 is often referred to as the annus mirabilis of physics . In that year Albert Einstein published four groundbreaking papers in addition to his dissertation in the journal Annalen der Physik .

  1. In an article on the interpretation of the photo effect published on June 9, the concept of the light quantum is introduced for the first time . ( About a heuristic point of view concerning the generation and transformation of light . In: Annalen der Physik , 17 (6), pp. 132-148)
  2. The explanation of the Brownian motion , published on July 18th, is considered an important step in the scientific proof of molecules and ultimately of atoms. ( About the movement of particles suspended in liquids at rest, required by the molecular kinetic theory of heat . In: Annalen der Physik . 17 (8), pp. 549-560)
  3. On September 26th, the fundamental work on special relativity was published . ( On the electrodynamics of moving bodies . In: Annalen der Physik 17 (10), 891-921)
  4. In an addendum dated November 21, he derived the equivalence of mass and energy . ( Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy content? In: Annalen der Physik , 18 (13), pp. 639–641)
  5. On April 30, Einstein submitted his dissertation A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions to the University of Zurich , for which he received a doctorate in physics on January 15, 1906.

In recognition of the work of that year, the Einstein Year in Germany was celebrated with the Einstein Mile , among other things , in 2005 , and for the first time a person was the focus of a year of science . Also internationally, especially in the Swiss federal city of Bern , where Einstein lived and worked during the Annus mirabilis, Einstein was honored as part of the Year of Physics 2005 .

1954 Fight against polio

1954 was in the field of medicine in the fight against the worldwide polio epidemic by simultaneous creation of the first intensive care unit ( Björn Ibsen ) and development of the first polio vaccination ( Jonas Salk ). to the annus mirabilis .

1963 (Philip Larkin)

1963 was for the English poet Philip Larkin, according to his poem of the same name, his Annus Mirabilis :

“ …
Between the end of the 'Chatterley' ban
And the Beatles ' first LP. ”

Turn of 1989

The term is also used in a political sense for “the year 1989, when the wave of democratization in Eastern Europe reached its peak”.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: annus mirabilis  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joel Levy: Newton's Notebook . The Life, Times and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The History Press, Stroud 2009, ISBN 978-0-7524-5493-1 (English).
  2. ↑ Review: Non-fiction book Jena before us in the happy years ... @ faz.net, October 12, 1998, accessed April 30, 2017; The fateful meeting of Goethe and Schiller in the Jena “Miracle Year” 1794 ( Memento of the original from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @ jena.de; Alice A. Kuzniar: The Birth of Homeopathy out of the Spirit of Romanticism. University of Toronto Press, 2017, p. 161 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.jena.de
  3. ↑ L. Reisner SENELAR: The birth of intensive care medicine: Bjørn Ibsen's records . ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Intensive Care Medicine , May 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / icmjournal.esicm.org
  4. ↑ Philip Larkin: (1922–1985) Annus Mirabilis. Retrieved July 8, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Kraus, Merkel. In: Bernecker, Walther et al. Spain today . Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 37.