en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen
4 corrections found
Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was known as "the Prince of Mathematicians" and taught here in the 18th century.
Gauss did not teach at Göttingen in the 18th century. He was appointed there in 1807 and worked in Göttingen through 1855, i.e. in the 19th century.
Full reasoning
This is a chronology error. Carl Friedrich Gauß studied at Göttingen from 1795 to 1798, but he was appointed to the university only in 1807.
The University of Göttingen’s own Gauss biography states: "Im Alter von nur 30 Jahren wurde der Mathematiker, Astronom und Physiker 1807 an die Georg-August-Universität berufen" (At age 30, he was appointed to the university in 1807). The university’s history overview likewise places him in Göttingen from 1807 to 1855 as professor of astronomy.
So while Gauss was associated with Göttingen, saying he "taught here in the 18th century" is incorrect: his teaching/professorial career there began in the 19th century.
2 sources
- Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777 bis 1855) - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
"Im Alter von nur 30 Jahren wurde der Mathematiker, Astronom und Physiker 1807 an die Georg-August-Universität berufen und war erster Direktor der ‚neuen‘ Sternwarte."
- History of the University - an overview - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
"1807-1855 Carl Friedrich Gauß ... was a professor of Astronomy in Göttingen."
it began admitting students in 1737
The university was already teaching in 1734; 1737 was the official inauguration, not the start of student instruction.
Full reasoning
The university’s own history page distinguishes between the start of teaching and the later formal opening. It says "Lectures at the University commenced in 1734" and that the official inauguration took place in 1737.
That means 1737 was not when the university first began admitting or teaching students. According to the official university history, instruction was already underway in 1734, with 1737 marking the ceremonial inauguration.
2 sources
- History of the University - an overview - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
The page also summarizes the founding period as "1734/37" and explains that teaching started before the 1737 inauguration.
- History of the University - an overview - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
"Lectures at the University commenced in 1734, and the official inauguration took place ... in 1737."
Apart from those celebrities mentioned above, notable people that have studied or taught at Georg-August University include the American banker J. P. Morgan, the seismologist Beno Gutenberg, the endocrinologist Hakaru Hashimoto, who studied there before World War I, and several notable Nobel laureates like Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg.
This sentence is incorrect because Max Planck did not study or teach at the University of Göttingen. He studied in Munich and Berlin, taught at Kiel and Berlin, and only moved to Göttingen late in life.
Full reasoning
The problem with this sentence is its inclusion of Max Planck in a list of people who "have studied or taught" at Göttingen.
Authoritative biographies do not place Planck among Göttingen’s students or faculty. NobelPrize.org states that Planck studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin and then taught as a Privatdozent in Munich, associate professor at Kiel, and professor at Berlin University. The Max Planck Society’s biographical overview gives the same career path and says only that he was evacuated to Göttingen in 1945, where he later died in 1947.
So Planck was associated with Göttingen as a late-life resident, but the article’s claim that he was among people who studied or taught at Georg-August University is inaccurate.
2 sources
- Max Planck - Biographical - NobelPrize.org
"Planck studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin ... He was Privatdozent in Munich ... Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics at Kiel ... Professor at Berlin University."
- Max Planck - a biographical overview | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
The Max Planck Society’s timeline lists Munich, Kiel, and Berlin for Planck’s study and academic posts, and says only that he was "Evacuated to Göttingen" in 1945.
During this period, scholars such as David Hilbert, Felix Klein, Max Born, and Ludwig Prandtl conducted influential research in mathematics, quantum mechanics, and aerodynamics at the university, which attracted an international student body, including prominent Americans such as Edward Everett, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
This sentence mixes together students from very different eras. Edward Everett, George Bancroft, and John Lothrop Motley studied at Göttingen in the early 19th century, not during the university’s late-19th/early-20th-century peak.
Full reasoning
The sentence says that during the university’s late-19th/early-20th-century peak, Göttingen attracted an international student body including Edward Everett, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. That timeline is wrong for several of the named Americans.
Authoritative archival/biographical sources place Edward Everett at Göttingen in the 1810s. Harvard Magazine states that Everett spent four years of travel and study centered on Göttingen and received a Göttingen Ph.D. in 1817.
Likewise, the Massachusetts Historical Society’s guide to the George Bancroft Papers says Bancroft left for Germany in 1818, attended Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen, and received a doctorate there in 1820.
So while Oppenheimer belongs to the later 20th-century Göttingen milieu, Everett and Bancroft clearly do not; they studied there about a century earlier. The sentence therefore incorrectly implies that all these Americans were part of the same late-19th/early-20th-century wave.
2 sources
- Brief life of statesman-orator Edward Everett | Harvard Magazine
"With a scholarly friend, he left for four years of travel and study, centered on the University of Göttingen, where in 1817 he received perhaps the first Ph.D. degree ever awarded an American."
- George Bancroft Papers, 1815-1908 | Massachusetts Historical Society
"Bancroft left for Germany the following year where he attended Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen. In 1820, he was awarded a doctorate from that university."