Hans-Erhard Lessing

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Hans-Erhard Lessing
Horse deaths 13% compared to 16 years earlier (Bittermann 1947)
Walking machine from Drais 1817

Hans-Erhard Lessing (born February 26, 1938 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ) is a German physicist and technology historian .

Life

After studying physics at the TH Stuttgart , Hans-Erhard Lessing received his doctorate from the TU Berlin in 1970 . After a postdoc at IBM in San José (California) , he completed his habilitation in physical chemistry at the University of Ulm in 1976 , where he became a temporary professor in 1981 and an adjunct professor in 1986 . After basic laser research, he turned to the history of technology and from 1985 worked as chief curator at museums in Mannheim and Karlsruhe . By researching the revocation of an honorary doctorate from RWTH Aachen in the Third Reich, he was able to rehabilitate the technology historian Franz Feldhaus. He was able to uncover the alleged autobiography of Karl Benz ( life journey of a German inventor ) as a ghostwriter product of his son-in-law Kart Volk.

Since the 1980s Lessing has been known primarily for his commitment to a paradigm shift in the history of technology, namely to historically recognize the bicycle as a pioneer of the automobile . To this end, he began to publish the historical bicycle literature, which is only preserved in deposit copies, as reprints, as sources for technical, social and cultural history. Lessing represents the German-speaking area at the annual “ International Cycling History Conference ”, where in 1997 he exposed the so-called Leonardo bicycle as a forgery: According to his findings , a drawing of a bicycle attributed to Leonardo da Vinci was apparently added to da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus after 1961 .

Lessing also drew attention to the connection between the invention of two-wheelers (the beginning of mechanized mobility) and the climate catastrophe of 1816/17 : In 1815 the Tambora volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa blew 160 cubic kilometers of dust into the atmosphere. A year later the climate catastrophe followed in the northern hemisphere: snowfall in summer, crop failure, famine, oat shortage, horse deaths. Shortly afterwards, Karl von Drais invented the draisine (walking machine) , the first steerable two-wheeler , (supposedly) to replace the threatened horses: two wheels instead of four hooves. The connection assumed by Lessing between the Tambora eruption and the Drais invention is now considered disputed. HE Lessing:

Initiator Lessing and co-author Tony Hadland published the 564-page bicycle history "Bicycle Design - An illustrated history" in the US publisher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge MA - based on their own research and 25 years of the International Cycling History Conference. The Russian edition ВЕЛОСИПЕД was published in 2019, a Chinese edition is in the works.

Fonts

Monographs

  • Proof of the dependence of the fluorescence decay process of organic molecules on the excitation intensity with a laser pulse fluorometer . Aku, Bamberg 1970 (dissertation, TU Berlin, 1970).
  • The bike book . (= rororo. 7178). Rowohlt Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 1978, ISBN 3-499-17178-3 .
  • Cycling in the city . (= rororo. 7365). Rowohlt Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-499-17365-4 .
  • with Ralf JF Kieselbach Fascination of form - automobile design in Baden-Württemberg . Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01825-3 .
  • Automobility. Karl Drais and the incredible beginnings . Maxime, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-931965-22-8 .
  • Natural beauty - phenomena in the Technorama . Huber, Frauenfeld 2006, ISBN 3-7193-1388-3 .
  • Robert Bosch (= Rowohlt's monographs. 50594). Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-50594-2 .
  • Mannheim pioneers . Wellhöfer, Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-939540-13-7 .
  • Karl Drais. Two wheels instead of four hooves . Braun, Karlsruhe 2010, ISBN 978-3-7650-8569-7 .
  • with Tony Hadland Bicycle Design - An illustrated history . The MIT Press, Cambridge USA 2014, ISBN 978-0-262-02675-8 .
  • The bike. A cultural story. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-91342-2 .
  • How Karl Drais invented the bicycle . Lauinger-Verlag, Karlsruhe 2017, ISBN 978-3-7650-8431-7 .

Articles (selection)

  • together with Alexander von Jena: Continuous Picosecond Spectroscopy of Dyes. In: Malcolm L. Stitch (Ed.): Laser Handbook. Volume 3, North-Holland, Amsterdam 1979, ISBN 0-444-85271-9 .
  • Technologists at Heidelberg University. In: W. Doerr (Ed.): Semper Apertus - 600 years of Heidelberg University. Volume II, Heidelberg 1985, ISBN 3-540-15425-6 , pp. 105-131.
  • Eminence thanks to fluorescence - Wilhelm Röntgen. In: The time. March 24, 1995.
  • The Evidence against Leonardo's Bicycle. In: Cycle History. 8, 1998, pp. 49-56. (German: in Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter. NF5, 1998, pp. 345–358)
  • Franz Maria Feldhaus - Can you make a living from the history of technology? In: P. Blum (ed.): Pioneers from technology and economy in Heidelberg . Aachen 2000, ISBN 3-8265-6544-4 , pp. 80-93.
  • Grandfather of the chip - Ferdinand Braun. In: The time. June 8, 2000.
  • What led to the Invention of the Early Bicycle? In: Cycle History. 11, 2001, pp. 28-36. (German: in Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter. NF3, 1996, pp. 275–360)
  • The longest in the whole empire - Baden's court saloon car No. 1. In: Heidelberg yearbook on the history of the city. No. 5, 2004, pp. 179-190.
  • Railway deluxe - Otto Kuhler. In: Culture & Technology. No. 3, 2005, pp. 56-59.
  • The Dymaxion Living Machine - Buckminster Fuller. In: Culture & Technology. No. 4, 2007, pp. 16-20.
  • Karl Benz 'last and Bertha Benz' first interview. In: Mannheim history sheets. No. 22, 2011, pp. 19-36.
  • The car is derived from the bicycle. In: VDI-Nachrichten. September 16, 2011.
  • Bicycles are the survivors of the horses. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. October 23, 2013.
  • Bread for the World, Death to the Enemy - Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in: Stephan Leibfried et al. (Hg): Berlin's Wilde Energies - Portraits from the history of the Leibniz Science Academy. de Gruyter, Berlin, 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-037598-5

As editor (selection)

  • Carl Johann Siegmund Bauer: Description of the v. Drais'schen driving machine and some attempts to improve it. Nuremberg 1817. (Reprint: Westhafen Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-942836-09-8 . Former reprint ad T. The first two-wheeler drove in Mannheim Quadrate-Buchhdlg. 2001)
  • Hippolyt de Wesez (Friedrich Maurer): First German illustrated Vélocipède brochure. Hints about the Vélocipède, its meaning and use, with special reference to the Vélocipède Michaux . Libri Rari, Hannover 1995, ISBN 3-88746-335-8 (facsimile reprint of the Vienna 1869 edition).
  • Gustav Steinmann: The Velocipede - its history, construction, use and distribution . Hyperion-Verlag, Simbach 2009. (Reprint of the Leipzig 1870 edition)
  • Wilhelm Wolf: Bicycle and Cyclist. 3. Edition. Harenberg, Dortmund 1988. (Facsimile reprint of the Leipzig 1890 edition)
  • Paul Salvisberg : Cycling in pictures and words . Olms, Hildesheim 1998, ISBN 3-487-08216-0 (facsimile reprint of the Munich edition 1897).
  • Paul Schiefferdecker, Johannes Schumacher: Cycling and its hygiene Stuttgart 1900 (reprint udT Fahrradkultur I, rororo Reinbek 1982).
  • Ferdinand Braun: Secrets of numbers and wonders of arithmetic. rororo-science, 1999 (partial reprint of the Leipzig edition 1876).
  • with Matthias Kielwein: Kaleidoscope of early bicycle and motorcycle technology. Volume 1 + 2, Maxime-Verlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-931965-15-5 . (Complete collection of articles from Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal 1895–1908)
  • Heinrich Horstmann : My bike tour around the world. The report of the first German bicycle world traveler in 1895. Maxime-Verlag, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-931965-06-8 .
  • with Matthias Kielwein: Kaleidoscope of early automotive technology. Volume 3, Maxime-Verlag, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-931965-16-7 . (Complete collection of articles from Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal 1895–1909)
  • Benz & Cie .: The Benz cars . Wellhöfer-Verlag, Mannheim 2008 (facsimile reprint of the Neustadt edition adH 1913).
  • I love cycling so much ... stories of happiness on two wheels . New edition. dtv, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-423-14088-1 .

Processing (selection)

  • Lewis Epstein: The Mind Exercise Physics - Questions and Answers. 6th edition. dtv, Munich 2011. (German adaptation of Thinking Physics , San Francisco 1979)
  • Tom Forester: The high-tech society . Oktagon, Stuttgart 1990. (German version of High-Tech Society , Blackwell, Oxford 1987)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HE Lessing: Franz Maria Feldhaus - Can one live from the history of technology? In: P. Blum (Ed.): Pioneers from technology and economy in Heidelberg . Aachen 2000, ISBN 3-8265-6544-4 , pp. 80-93.
  2. ^ H. E: Lessing: Karl Benz 'last and Bertha Benz ' first interview. In: Mannheim history sheets. No. 22, 2011, pp. 19-36.
  3. ^ HE Lessing: Karl Drais and the two-wheeled principle . In: Technoseum (ed.): 2 wheels - 200 years. Freiherr von Drais and the history of the bicycle . Theiss, Darmstadt 2016, ISBN 978-3-8062-3374-2 , p. 42-57 .
  4. ↑ Christian Wüst: Veil over it . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 2017, p. 98 ( Online - Mar. 4, 2017 ).
personal data
SURNAME Lessing, Hans-Erhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and engineering historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwäbisch Gmünd