Kurd Lasswitz (german: link=no, Kurd Laßwitz; 20 April 1848 – 17 October 1910) was a German author, scientist, and philosopher. He has been called "the father of German

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

". He sometimes used the pseudonym ''Velatus''.

Biography

Lasswitz studied mathematics and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the

University of Breslau A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

and the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

, and earned his doctorate in 1873. He spent most of his career as a teacher at the Ernestine Gymnasium in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

(1876–1908).

Works

His first published science fiction story was ("To the Zero Point of Existence", 1871), depicting life in 2371, but he earned his reputation with his 1897 novel , which describes an encounter between humans and a

Martian Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the pr ...

civilization that is older and more advanced. The book has the Martian race running out of water, eating synthetic foods, travelling by rolling roads, and utilising space stations. His spaceships use

anti-gravity Anti-gravity (also known as non-gravitational field) is a hypothetical phenomenon of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or t ...

, but travel realistic orbital trajectories, and use occasional mid-course corrections in travelling between Mars and the Earth; the book depicted the technically correct transit between the orbits of two planets, something poorly understood by other early science fiction writers. It influenced Walter Hohmann and . The book was not translated into English until 1971 (as ''Two Planets''), and the translation is incomplete. was his most successful novel. A story from Lasswitz's served as the basis for "

The Library of Babel "The Library of Babel" ( es, La biblioteca de Babel) is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain ...

", a short story by

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

.Borges, Jorge Luis, and Eliot Weinberger. "The Total Library" in ''Selected Non-Fictions''. New York: Penguin Books, 1999, pp.215–216. His last book was ("Star Dew: the Plant of Neptune's Moon", 1909). He is also known for his 1896 biography of

Gustav Fechner Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he ins ...

. For his writing (totalling around 420 works including non-fiction), Lasswitz has been called "the first utopistic-scientific writer in Germany" or even "a German Jules Verne". A crater on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

was named in his honour, as was the asteroid 46514 Lasswitz. There also is the , an award for German-speaking as well as foreign authors of science fiction since 1981.

References

External links

* * *
Kurd Laßwitz
page at the * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lasswitz, Kurd 1848 births 1910 deaths Politicians from Wrocław People from the Province of Silesia University of Breslau alumni German science fiction writers German male writers German schoolteachers

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links