The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject. The general goal of the academy is the promotion of interdisciplinary encounters and contacts and the cooperation of representatives of different subjects.

History

German State Kingdom of Bavaria Silver Prize Token 1807, obverse

German State Kingdom of Bavaria Silver Prize Token 1807, reverse

On 12 October 1758 the lawyer

Johann Georg von Lori Johann Georg von Lori (17 July 1723 – 23 March 1787) was a Bavarian high official, lawyer and historian. He was the driving force behind the foundation of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1759. Life Early years Johann Georg ...

(1723–1787), Privy Counsellor at the College of Coinage and Mining in Munich, founded the ''Bayerische Gelehrte Gesellschaft'' (Learned Society of Bavaria). This led to the foundation by Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria, of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities on 28 March 1759. Count Sigmund von Haimhausen was the first president. The Academy's foundation charter specifically mentions the Parnassus Boicus, an earlier learned society. Originally, the Academy consisted of two divisions, the Class for History (''Historische Klasse'') and the Class for Philosophy (''Philosophische Klasse''); natural sciences, including

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern 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 ...

, were thought of as part of the Class for Philosophy. Today, the Academy is still divided into two classes, but the classes are now the Class for Philosophy and History (which also includes the humanities and social sciences) and the Class for Mathematics and the Natural Sciences.

Members

In each class, the number of ordinary members is limited to 45, and the number of corresponding members is limited to 80. However, ordinary members at or over the age of 70 are not counted towards this limit; the number of ordinary members is, therefore, usually around 120. During the course of its history, the academy has had numerous famous members including

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

, the Grimm brothers,

Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th centur ...

Anthimos Gazis Anthimos Gazis or Gazes ( gr, Ἄνθιμος Γαζῆς, born ''Anastasios Gazalis'', ; 1758 24 June 1828) was a Greek scholar, revolutionary and politician. He was born in Milies (Thessaly) in Ottoman Greece in 1758 into a family of modest me ...

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

and

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named afte ...

, Kurt Sethe,

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematis ...

and

Adolf Butenandt Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt (; 24 March 1903 – 18 January 1995) was a German biochemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1939 for his "work on sex hormones." He initially rejected the award in accordance with government po ...

. The first women were admitted as full members of the academy in 1995, and including the geneticist Regine Kafmann and the Indo-European linguist

Johanna Narten Johanna Narten (Hannover, 5 October 1930 – Uttenreuth, 15 July 2019), was a German Indo-Europeanist and Indo-Iranian linguist who discovered the reconstructed morphological category in Proto-Indo-European now known as the Narten present. She ...

Presidents

First president was the chairman of the Mint and Mining Commission,

Sigmund, Count of Haimhausen Sigmund von Haimhausen (28 December 1708 – 16 January 1793) was a Bavarian aristocrat, mining operator, head of the Bavarian Mint and Mines commission, porcelain manufacturer and first president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Early ye ...

. Further presidents included

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (; 25 January 1743 – 10 March 1819) was an influential German philosopher, literary figure, and socialite. He is notable for popularizing nihilism, a term coined by Obereit in 1787, and promoting it as the prime faul ...

, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling,

Justus von Liebig Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 20 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at th ...

Ignaz von Döllinger Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger (; 28 February 179914 January 1890), also Doellinger in English, was a German theologian, Catholic priest and church historian who rejected the dogma of papal infallibility. Among his writings which proved con ...

Max von Pettenkofer Max Joseph Pettenkofer, ennobled in 1883 as Max Joseph von Pettenkofer (3 December 1818 – 10 February 1901) was a Bavarian chemist and hygienist. He is known for his work in practical hygiene, as an apostle of good water, fresh air and proper ...

and Walther Meißner. At present, the presidency is held by .

Commissions of the Academy

For the pursuit of long-term projects, the Academy forms Commissions. At present, 37 Commissions employ more than 450 persons.

References

Citations Sources *

External links