Jürgen Renn (historian)

Jürgen Renn (born July 11, 1956 in Moers ) is a German historian of science and has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin since 1994 .

Life

After graduating from the Adolfinum in Moers, Renn studied physics at the Free University of Berlin (FU) and La Sapienza (Rome) and received his doctorate in mathematical physics at the TU Berlin in 1987 . Between 1986 and 1992 he was affiliate editor of the "Collected Papers of Albert Einstein" at Boston University . From 1991 to 1996 he and Peter Damerow headed the Albert Einstein office at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. In 1993/94 he was visiting professor at Tel Aviv University and ETH Zurich . Renn has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) since 1994 . Renn holds an honorary professorship for the history of science at the Humboldt University of Berlin and at the Free University of Berlin . He is also an adjunct professor of philosophy and physics at Boston University. He is a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (since 2003) and the International Academy for the History of Science , board member of the Berlin Cluster of Excellence Topoi and the Berliner Antike-Kolleg , and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (since 2018).

Act

research

Renn's research projects are oriented towards researching long-term developments in knowledge and at the same time focus on globalization processes. For example, he researches the historical development of mechanics from antiquity to the 20th century. In this context he has also dealt with the origins of mechanics in China , as well as with the transformation of ancient knowledge and the exchange of knowledge between Europe and China in the early modern period . More recently, Renn has dealt in particular with the challenge of the Anthropocene for the history of knowledge and science. Another focus of his work is the history of modern physics , in particular the origin and development of general relativity and quantum theory .

Digitization and Open Access

Renn has campaigned for open access to historical sources since the web was first created. In 1992 he initiated the project of a “Galileo-Einstein Electronic Archive” together with Peter Damerow and Paolo Galluzzi . He later founded the ECHO ( European Cultural Heritage Online ) initiative with the support of the European Community . Renn is co-initiator of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Scientific Knowledge and started the Edition Open Access platform with colleagues .

Exhibitions

Renn organized numerous exhibitions in the field of science, technology and cultural history. He took part in the following exhibitions, among others:

• 2005: Albert Einstein - Engineer of the Universe for the Year of Physics 2005 , Kronprinzenpalais (Berlin)
• 2008: Max Planck - Reluctant Revolutionary , German Museum of Technology (Berlin)
• 2010: World Knowledge - 300 Years of Science in Berlin , Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin)
• 2013: Archimedes. Art and Invention Science , Capitoline Museums (Rome)

Awards and honors

• 1988: Fellow, Fritz Thyssen Foundation , Berlin
• 1988: Fellow, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche , Rome
• 1988–1989: Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 1992: Visiting scientist at the research focus "History of Science and Theory of Science" of the Society for New Scientific Projects of the Max Planck Society Berlin
• 1998: Pirelli International Award
• 2011: Premio Anassilaos International
• 2014: Premio Internazionale “Marco & Alberto Ippolito”, Sezione cultura
• 2014: Francis Bacon Prize
• 2014: Max Planck Communitas Prize
• 2014: Neuenschwander Prize

Fonts

Monographs and edited volumes (selection)

• The Evolution of Knowledge - Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020, ISBN 978-0-691-17198-2
• with Fynn Ole Engler : Split Reason. From the end of a dialogue between science and philosophy . Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2018, ISBN 978-3-95757-342-1 .
• The Road to Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's "The Foundation of General Relativity" . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015 (with Hanoch Gutfreund), ISBN 978-1-4008-6576-5 .
• Relativity: the Special and the General Theory, 100th Anniversary Edition . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015 (with Hanoch Gutfreund), ISBN 978-0-691-16633-9 .
• History of knowledge of architecture . Vol. 1: From the Neolithic to the Ancient Orient ; Vol. 2: From Ancient Egypt to Ancient Rome ; Vol. 3: From the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age . Studies 3, 4, 5: Max Planck Research Library in the History and Development of Knowledge. Berlin, Edition Open Access, 2014 (with Wilhelm Osthues, Hermann Schlimme).
• A utopian episode - Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in the networks of the Max Planck Society. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin 2013 (with Horst Kant ).
• The Equilibrium Controversy. Guidobaldo Del Monte's Critical Notes on the Mechanics of Jordanus and Benedetti and Their Historical and Conceptual Background . Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2012 (with Peter Damerow).
• The Globalization of Knowledge in History . Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2012.
• Boltzmann and the end of the mechanistic worldview (Wiener Vorlesungen, Volume 130). Vienna: Picus Verlag, 2007.
• The Genesis of General Relativity , 4 volumes (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 250): Vol. 1 and 2 (Einstein's Zurich Notebooks), Vol. 3 (Gravitation in the twilight of classical physics - between mechanics, field theory and astronomy), Vol. 4 (Gravitation in the twilight of classical physics - the promise of mathematics). Dordrecht: Springer, 2007.
• Positioning the History of Science . (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 248). Dordrecht: Springer, 2007 (together with Kostas Gavroglu).
• Albert Einstein - Engineer of the Universe . 3 volumes. Berlin: Wiley-VCH, 2006.
• On the shoulders of giants and dwarves: Einstein's unfinished revolution . Berlin: Wiley-VCH, 2006.

Journal articles and anthology articles (selection)

• "From the History of Science to the History of Knowledge - and Back" , in Centaurus 57 (1), 2015: 35–53.
• "Einstein's Copernican Revolution", in The Cambridge Companion to Einstein , ed. v. Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, 38–71. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014 (with Robert Rynasiewicz).
• "The Globalization of Knowledge in History and its Normative Challenges" in Rechtsgeschichte / Legal History 2014 (22): 52–60.
• "Beyond Editions: Historical Sources in the Digital Age", in Internationality and Interdisciplinarity of Edition Studies , ed. v. Michael Stolz and Yen-Chun Chen, 9–28. editio / supplements 38.Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014
• "Learning from Kushim about the Origin of Writing and Farming", in Grain | Vapor | Ray. Textures of the Anthropocene , ed. v. Katrin Klingan, Ashkan Sepahvand , Christoph Rosol and Bernd M. Scherer, 241–259. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.
• "Schrödinger and the Genesis of Wave Mechanics", in Erwin Schrödinger - 50 Years After , ed. v. Wolfgang L. Reiter and Jakob Yngvason, 9-36. Zurich: European Mathematical Society, 2013.
• "The Emergence of Statistical Mechanics", in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics , ed. v. Jed Z. Buchwald and Robert Fox, 765-788. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (with Olivier Darrigol).
• "The Transformation of Ancient Mechanics into a Mechanistic World View", in Transformations of Ancient Sciences , ed. v. Georg Toepfer and Hartmut Böhme, 243–267. Transformations of Antiquity , Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010 (with Peter Damerow).

Web links

• Literature by and about Jürgen Renn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jürgen Renn's profile page on the MPIWG website
• Comprehensive list of publications on PubMan .
• Projects by Jürgen Renn at the MPIWG
• Edition Open Access
• ECHO - Cultural Heritage Online
• Jürgen Renn in the Media Library of the MPIWG
• Jürgen Renn on youtube
• Virtual exhibition Albert Einstein - Engineer of the Universe
• Galileo's notes on motion and mechanics

Video

• Video on Jürgen Renn's research (Latest Thinking)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The massive Sin-Gordon equation in constructive quantum field theory and classical statistical mechanics: some rigorous results
2. ↑ http://www.einstein.caltech.edu/
3. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn (with picture) at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on July 19, 2016.
4. ↑ https://www.topoi.org/person/renn-juergen/
5. ↑ Andrea Korte: AAAS Honors Accomplished Scientists as 2018 Elected Fellows. American Association for the Advancement of Science, November 27, 2018, accessed November 28, 2018 . 
6. ↑ See, for example, the podcast of a lecture on the Anthropocene Campus
7. ↑ Jürgen Renn: What science has to do. Help people come to their senses. In: Tagesspiegel Online. Verlag Der Tagesspiegel GmbH, October 16, 2019, accessed on November 19, 2019 . 
8. ↑ https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DEPT1_10_20Buettner-OpenAccess and in summary Jürgen Renn, "Beyond editions: historical sources in the digital age", in internationality and interdisciplinarity of edition science , ed. v. M. Stolz, & Y.-C. Chen, Berlin: De Gruyter 2014, pp. 9–28.
9. ↑ https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DEPT1_10_13Rieger-ECHO
10. ↑ Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, 2003 ( Memento from May 12, 2011)
11. ↑ http://www.edition-open-access.de/
12. ↑ http://einstein-virtuell.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/
13. ↑ http://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/berlin/article175255/Technikmuseum-wuerdigt-Max-Planck.html
14. ↑ http://www.weltwissen-berlin.de/index.php/katalog-249.html
15. ↑ http://www.museicapitolini.org/mostre_ed_eventi/mostre/archimede_arte_e_scienza_dell_invenzione
16. ↑ Claudia Tamiro, "Anassilaos, cultura d'esportazione", in Il Quotidiano (November 13, 2011), at http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Presse-PDF/2011-11-13_IlQuotidianoAnassilaos.pdf
17. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 5, 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. 
18. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 9, 2015 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. 
19. ↑ http://openaccess.mpg.de/1540186/Communitas-Preis
20. ↑ Neuenschwander Prize. Retrieved April 18, 2018 .