wilhelm

German - Turkish

Definition of wilhelm in German Turkish dictionary

n.pr. mV Giyom

Turkish - Turkish

Definition of wilhelm in Turkish Turkish dictionary

Related Terms

richard wilhelm abegg

Değerlik Kavramının anlaşılmasına katkıda bulunan Alman fiziksel kimyacı

German - English

Definition of wilhelm in German English dictionary

William

William the Conqueror defeated king Harold in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. - Wilhelm der Eroberer besiegte König Harald 1066 in der Schlacht bei Hastings.

Having failed twice, William didn't want to try again. - Nach zweimaligem Scheitern wollte Wilhelm es kein weiteres Mal versuchen.

Related Terms

Wilhelm der Eroberer

William the Conqueror

Wilhelm der Tapfere

William the Brave

Wilhelm von Oranien

William of Orange

'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre' (von Goethe / Werktitel)

'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship' (by Goethe / work title)

'Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre' (von Goethe / Werktitel)

'Wilhelm Meister's Travels' (by Goethe / work title)

'Wilhelm Tell' (von Schiller / Werktitel)

'William Tell' (by Schiller / work title)

Die nicht instandgesetzte Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche soll ganz bewusst an d

The ruined Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was preserved as a purposeful reminder of the madness of World War II

seinen Friedrich Wilhelm auf etwas setzen (etw. signieren)

to put one's John Hancock on something

English - English

Definition of wilhelm in English English dictionary

{i} male first name

Bach Wilhelm Friedemann Baeyer Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Bessel Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann Wilhelm Brandt Bunsen Robert Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Cuno Wilhelm Carl Josef Daimler Gottlieb Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel Friedrich Wilhelm August Friedrich Wilhelm Fröbel Furtwängler Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Gneisenau August Wilhelm Anton Count Neidhardt von Gräfe Albrecht Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von Grass Günter Wilhelm Grimm Jacob Ludwig Carl and Wilhelm Carl Guderian Heinz Wilhelm Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich His Wilhelm Humboldt Karl Wilhelm baron von Johannsen Wilhelm Ludvig Keitel Wilhelm Kleist Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen Lehmbruck Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr baron von Leibniz Liebknecht Wilhelm Ludwig Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald Friedrich Wilhelm Pabst Georg Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schickard Wilhelm Schlegel August Wilhelm von Karl Wilhelm Siemens Heinrich Wilhelm Stiegel Struve Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Wagner Wilhelm Richard Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Weierstrass Karl Theodor Wilhelm Ernst Wilhelm Wenders Kaiser Wilhelm Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig Wundt Wilhelm Guillelmus or Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr baron von

Related Terms

Wilhelm Alexander Freund

{i} Wilhelm A. Freund (1833-1918), German gynecologist

Wilhelm Canaris

born Jan. 1, 1887, Aplerbeck, Westphalia, Ger. died April 9, 1945, Flossenbürg concentration camp, Bavaria German naval officer. Under Adolf Hitler, Canaris became head of military intelligence (Abwehr) in 1935. Believing that the Nazi regime would destroy traditional conservative values and that its foreign ambitions were dangerous to Germany, he enlisted some of the anti-Hitler conspirators into the Abwehr and shielded their activities. After the abortive July Plot against Hitler in 1944, Canaris was arrested and executed

Wilhelm Carl Josef Cuno

born July 2, 1876, Suhl, Ger. died Jan. 3, 1933, Aumühle German politician and business leader. After serving in government positions from 1907, in 1918 he became general director of the Hamburg-American Line, the largest German shipping concern. He served as chancellor of the Weimar Republic (1922-23), enjoying the strong support of German business and industry but failing to readjust war reparations or halt inflation. During the Ruhr occupation he urged a national policy of passive resistance, which ultimately overtaxed the economy. Obliged to resign, he returned to Hamburg-American and again served as chairman (1926-33)

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

or Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen born March 27, 1845, Lennep, Prussia died Feb. 10, 1923, Munich, Ger. German physicist. He taught at the Universities of Giessen (1879-88), Würzburg (1888-1900), and Berlin (1900-20). In 1895 he discovered rays that did not exhibit properties such as reflection or refraction and mistakenly thought they were unrelated to light. Because of their mysterious nature, he called them X rays. He later produced the first X-ray photographs, showing the interiors of metal objects and the bones in his wife's hand. He also did important research in a wide variety of other fields. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics

Wilhelm Cuno

born July 2, 1876, Suhl, Ger. died Jan. 3, 1933, Aumühle German politician and business leader. After serving in government positions from 1907, in 1918 he became general director of the Hamburg-American Line, the largest German shipping concern. He served as chancellor of the Weimar Republic (1922-23), enjoying the strong support of German business and industry but failing to readjust war reparations or halt inflation. During the Ruhr occupation he urged a national policy of passive resistance, which ultimately overtaxed the economy. Obliged to resign, he returned to Hamburg-American and again served as chairman (1926-33)

Wilhelm Dilthey

born Nov. 19, 1833, Biebrich, Nassau, Ger. died Oct. 1, 1911, Seis am Schlern, South Tirol, Austria-Hungary German philosopher of history. Opposed to contemporary efforts to transform the methodology of the humanities and the social sciences on the model of natural science, Dilthey tried to establish these fields as interpretive sciences in their own right. Their subject matter, according to him, is the human mind, not as it is enjoyed in immediate experience nor as it is analyzed in psychological theory, but as it manifests or "objectifies" itself in languages and literatures, actions, and institutions. Dilthey emphasized that the essence of human beings cannot be grasped by introspection but only from a knowledge of all of history; this understanding, however, can never be final because history itself never is. His major work is Introduction to Human Science (1883); two influential essays are "Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytical Psychology" (1894) and "The Structure of the Historical World in the Human Sciences" (1910)

Wilhelm Franz Canaris

born Jan. 1, 1887, Aplerbeck, Westphalia, Ger. died April 9, 1945, Flossenbürg concentration camp, Bavaria German naval officer. Under Adolf Hitler, Canaris became head of military intelligence (Abwehr) in 1935. Believing that the Nazi regime would destroy traditional conservative values and that its foreign ambitions were dangerous to Germany, he enlisted some of the anti-Hitler conspirators into the Abwehr and shielded their activities. After the abortive July Plot against Hitler in 1944, Canaris was arrested and executed

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

born Nov. 22, 1710, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar died July 1, 1784, Berlin German composer and organist. Eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he was trained by his father. One of the finest organists of his time, he held important organist posts in Dresden (1723-46) and Halle (1746-64) but thereafter lived an unsettled life and drifted into drinking and poverty. Though he was a highly gifted composer, his compositions veered confusingly between the old contrapuntal style and the new pre-Classical styles. He wrote more than 30 church cantatas, several keyboard concertos, and many solo keyboard works

Wilhelm Furtwängler

born Jan. 25, 1886, Berlin died Nov. 30, 1954, near Baden-Baden, W.Ger. German conductor and composer. After private composition studies with Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), he debuted in 1906. His revised Te Deum (1910) established him as a composer, and in 1917 his work as a guest conductor in Berlin earned him high praise. He succeeded Richard Strauss at the Berlin State Opera, and Arthur Nikisch (1855-1922) at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Berlin Philharmonic, becoming especially associated with the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner. Though criticized for staying in Germany during the Nazi era, he was no friend of the regime, continuing to program modern music and helping Jewish musicians to escape. He was formally exonerated of complicity with the Nazis, but public hostility dogged his later years

Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz

(1640-1716) German philosopher and mathematician (invented calculus simultaneously with Newton)

Wilhelm Grimm

{i} Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786-1859), younger of the Grimm Brothers

Wilhelm His

born Dec. 29, 1863, Basel, Switz. died Nov. 10, 1934, Wiesental Swiss cardiologist. His father, Wilhelm His (1831-1904), first realized that each nerve fibre stems from a single neuron and invented the microtome, a device used to slice thin tissue sections for microscopic examination. The younger His discovered (1893) the specialized muscle fibres (bundle of His) running along the septum between the heart's left and right chambers. He found that they help communicate a single rhythm of contraction to all parts of the heart, and he was one of the first to recognize that the heartbeat originates in individual cells of heart muscle

Wilhelm II

first king of Prussia, last kaiser of Germany

Wilhelm Keitel

born Sept. 22, 1882, Helmscherode, Ger. died Oct. 16, 1946, Nürnberg German field marshal. After serving in World War I, he held administrative posts from 1918 to 1933, after which he became minister of war (1935) and head of the German armed forces high command (1938). Although one of Adolf Hitler's most trusted lieutenants, he was generally regarded as a weak officer and served chiefly as Hitler's lackey. He signed the act of Germany's military surrender in 1945. After the war he was convicted at the Nürnberg trials and executed as a war criminal

Wilhelm Lehmbruck

born Jan. 4, 1881, Meiderich, Ger. died March 25, 1919, Berlin German sculptor, painter, and printmaker. His youthful work was academically realistic, but he grew to admire the works of Auguste Rodin, and in 1910 he moved to Paris, where he produced paintings and lithographs as well as sculptures. He became one of the most important German Expressionist sculptors, best known for his elongated nudes, such as Kneeling Woman (1911), which suggests a resigned pessimism. He returned to Germany at the outbreak of World War I and tended wounded soldiers in a hospital. Seated Youth (1917) reveals his profound depression; he committed suicide two years later

Wilhelm Liebknecht

born March 29, 1826, Giessen, Hesse died Aug. 7, 1900, Berlin, Ger. German socialist, cofounder of the German Social Democratic Party. Imprisoned for participating in the Revolutions of 1848, he lived in exile in England (1849-62), working closely with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Prussia granted him amnesty in 1862, but Otto von Bismarck had him expelled again in 1865. In Leipzig he and August Bebel organized the Social Democratic Labour Party in 1869. He was imprisoned (1872-74) for his writings against the Franco-Prussian War. Bismarck's repression of the socialists brought about a merger with the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle in 1875. With the expiration of the Anti-Socialist Law (1878-90), this party became known as the German Social Democratic Party. Liebknecht continued as a leading spokesman, primarily as a writer for the party's newspaper, Vorwärts

Wilhelm Ludvig Johannsen

born Feb. 3, 1857, Copenhagen, Den. died Nov. 11, 1927, Copenhagen Danish botanist and geneticist. He supported Hugo de Vries's discovery that variation in genotype can occur by mutation; the new character, while independent of natural selection in its initial occurrence, is then subject to natural selection. Johannsen's Elements of Heredity (1909) became an influential text, and his terms phenotype and genotype are now a part of the language of genetics

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt

{i} (1832-1920) German psychologist and physiologist and founder of the first psychology laboratory (he is known as the father of experimental psychology)

Wilhelm Ostwald

born Sept. 2, 1853, Riga, Latvia died April 4, 1932, near Leipzig, Ger. Russian-German physical chemist. He moved to Germany in 1887. He wrote the influential Textbook of General Chemistry, 2 vol. (1885-87). With Jacobus H. van't Hoff in 1887 he founded the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, which became for many years the most important journal in the field. His work at the University of Leipzig (1887-1906) established it as a great school of physical chemistry. In 1888 he discovered Ostwald's law of dilution of an electrolyte. He gave the first modern definition of a catalyst in 1894 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work on catalysis. His process for the conversion of ammonia to nitric acid proved of great industrial importance. He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry

Wilhelm Reich

born March 24, 1897, Dobrzcynica, Galicia, Austria-Hungary died Nov. 3, 1957, Lewisburg, Pa., U.S. Austrian-U.S. psychologist. Trained at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, he joined the faculty of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1924. In The Function of the Orgasm (1927), he argued that the failure to achieve orgasm could produce neurosis. An advocate of sexual education and freedom as well as of radical left-wing politics, he left Germany in 1933 and settled in the U.S. in 1939. After breaking with the psychoanalytic movement in 1934, he developed a pseudoscientific system called orgonomy. He conceived of mental illness and some physical illnesses as deficiency of cosmic energy (measured in units called "orgones"), which he treated by placing the patient in a cabinet with reflective inner surfaces known as the orgone box. Reich's views brought him into conflict with U.S. authorities in the early 1950s; he was convicted of contempt of court and died in prison

Wilhelm Reich

{i} (1897-1957) Jewish-Austrian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who said he discovered "orgone

Wilhelm Richard Wagner

born May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Ger. died Feb. 13, 1883, Venice, Italy German composer. His childhood was divided between Dresden and Leipzig, where he had his first composition lessons; his teacher refused payment because of his talent. His first opera, The Fairies (1834), was followed by The Ban on Love (1836); the premiere performance was so unprepared that the event was a fiasco, and he henceforth determined not to settle for modest productions. The success of Rienzi (1840) led him to be more adventurous in The Flying Dutchman (1843) and even more so in Tannhäuser (1845). Caught up in the political turmoil of 1848, he was forced to flee Dresden for Zürich. During this enforced vacation, he wrote influential essays, asserting (following G.W.F. Hegel) that music had reached a limit after Ludwig van Beethoven and that the "artwork of the future" would unite music and theatre in a Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"). In 1850 he saw Lohengrin produced. He had begun his most ambitious work, The Ring of the Nibelung, a four-opera cycle. The need for large-scale unity brought him to the concept of the leitmotiv. He ceased work on the Ring's third opera, Siegfried, in the throes of an adulterous love with Mathilde Wesendonk and wrote an opera of forbidden love, Tristan und Isolde (1859), which also seemed to break the bonds of tonality. He published the Ring librettos in 1863, with a plea for financial support, and Louis II of Bavaria responded, inviting Wagner to complete the work in Munich. From the late 1860s to the early 1880s, Wagner completed work on Die Meistersinger, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, and the long-deferred Parsifal, as he also oversaw the building of the great festival theatre at Bayreuth (1872-76) that would be dedicated to his operas. His astonishing works made Wagner one of the most influential and consequential figures in the history of Western music and, indeed, of Western culture. In the late 20th century his undoubted musical stature was challenged somewhat by the strongly racist and anti-Semitic views expressed in his writings, and evidence of anti-Semitism in his operas was increasingly documented

Wilhelm Schickard

born April 22, 1592, Herrenberg, Württemberg died Oct. 24, 1635, Tübingen German astronomer, mathematician, and cartographer. In 1623 he invented one of the first calculating machines. He proposed to Johannes Kepler the development of a mechanical means of calculating ephemerides (predicted positions of celestial bodies at regular intervals of time), and he contributed to the improvement of accuracy in mapmaking

Wilhelm Waldeyer

{i} Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz (1835-1921), German anatomist and pathologist who named the chromosome

Wilhelm Wundt

born , Aug. 16, 1832, Neckarau, near Mannheim, Baden died Aug. 31, 1920, Grossbothen, Ger. German physiologist and psychologist, the founder of experimental psychology. After earning a medical degree, he studied briefly with Johannes Peter Müller and later assisted Hermann von Helmholtz. At the University of Heidelberg in 1862, following publication of his Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1858-62), he gave the first course in scientific psychology. In Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873-74) he claimed that psychology must be based directly on experience and that its proper method was that of controlled introspection. At the University of Leipzig (1875-1917), he established the first psychological laboratory (1879) and founded the first journal of psychology (1881). His later works include Outline of Psychology (1896) and Ethnic Psychology (10 vol., 1900-20)

Wilhelm Wundt

{i} Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920), German psychologist and physiologist and founder of the first psychology laboratory (he is known as the father of experimental psychology)

Wilhelm baron von Humboldt

born June 22, 1767, Potsdam, Prussia died April 8, 1835, Tegel, near Berlin German linguist and educational reformer. The elder brother of Alexander von Humboldt, he held a number of government posts. As minister of education (1809), he raised elementary education standards and was instrumental in founding Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University, or University of Berlin) in Berlin. Humboldt also contributed greatly to the philosophy of language, contending that its character and structure express the speaker's culture and individuality and that humans perceive the world through the medium of language. He also carried out research on the Basque language and Kawi (old Javanese)

wilhelm ii

grandson of Queen Victoria and Kaiser of Germany from 1888 to 1918; he was vilified as causing World War I (1859-1941)

Albrecht Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von Gräfe

born May 22, 1828, Berlin, Prussia died July 20, 1870, Berlin German ophthalmologist. Using Hermann von Helmholtz's ophthalmoscope, he developed several operations for eye disorders, including iridectomy (removal of part of the iris) for glaucoma and lens extraction for cataract. He traced blindness and visual defects in some cerebral disorders to optic-nerve inflammation. Gräfe sign (diagnostic for Graves disease) is failure of the upper eyelid to follow the eyeball when looking downward. His writings include a Manual of Comprehensive Ophthalmology (7 vol., 1874-80). He is considered the founder of modern ophthalmology

Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern

born Dec. 3, 1883, Vienna died Sept. 15, 1945, Mittersill, near Salzburg, Austria Austrian composer. He learned piano and cello as a child and earned a doctorate in musicology at the University of Vienna, specializing in the music of the 15th-century Flemish composer Heinrich Isaac. In 1904 he and his friend Alban Berg began composition lessons with Arnold Schoenberg, and Webern was soon combining atonality with complex counterpoint in the manner of Isaac, producing works distinctive for their extreme brevity and delicacy. While Schoenberg was developing the 12-tone method (see serialism) of composition into the 1920s, Webern was independently moving in a similar direction. After Schoenberg presented the system in 1924, Webern adopted it, composing relatively extended pieces such as the Symphony (1928), Concerto (1934), and Variations for Piano (1936). He earned a living most of his life as a conductor. During Austria's occupation at the end of World War II, he was accidentally shot and killed by an American soldier. Though he was little appreciated during his lifetime, his works became highly influential internationally in the postwar decades

August Wilhelm Anton Count Neidhardt von Gneisenau

born Oct. 27, 1760, Schildau, near Torgau, Saxony died Aug. 23, 1831, Posen, Prussia Prussian field marshal and military reformer. Along with Gerhard J.D. von Scharnhorst, he remolded the Prussian army shattered by Napoleon (1806) from a mercenary force into an instrument of modern warfare, introducing universal military service. In 1811-12 he traveled on secret missions to negotiate a new war against Napoleon, which was renewed in 1813. As chief of staff to Gebhard von Blücher, he planned Prussian, and sometimes Russian, strategy. Gneisenau's insistence on the decisive battle and relentless pursuit proved successful at the Battle of Waterloo

August Wilhelm von Schlegel

born Sept. 8, 1767, Hannover, Hanover died May 12, 1845, Bonn German scholar and critic. He worked as a tutor and wrote for Friedrich Schiller's short-lived periodical Die Horen before cofounding with his brother Friedrich von Schlegel the periodical Athenäum (1798-1800), which became the organ of German Romanticism. While a professor at the University of Jena, he undertook translations of the works of William Shakespeare (1797-1810) that became standard editions and are among the finest of all German literary translations. His Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1809-11) was widely translated and helped spread fundamental Romantic ideas throughout Europe. From 1818 until his death he taught at the University of Bonn

Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist

He is now considered the first of the great 19th-century German dramatists, and his disturbing and densely written fictions are widely admired by writers

Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist

born Oct. 18, 1777, Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg died Nov. 21, 1811, Wannsee, near Berlin German writer. He served seven years in the Prussian army, and his work first attracted attention when he was in prison accused as a spy. The grim and intense drama Penthesilea (1808) contains some of his most powerful poetry, and The Broken Pitcher (1808) is a masterpiece of dramatic comedy; they were followed by Katherine of Heilbronn (1810), Die Hermannsschlacht (1821), and The Prince of Homburg (1821). In 1811 he published a collection of eight masterly novellas, including Michael Kohlhaas, The Earthquake in Chile, and The Marquise of O. Embittered by a lack of recognition, he ended his unhappy life in a joint suicide with a young woman at age

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig

born Dec. 29, 1816, Witzenhausen, near Kassel, Hesse-Kassel died April 23, 1895, Leipzig, Ger. German physician. He invented devices to record arterial blood-pressure changes, measure blood flow, and separate gases from blood (which established their role in blood purification). He was the first to keep animal organs alive outside the body. His paper on urine secretion in 1844 hypothesized a filtering role for the kidney. Nearly 200 of Ludwig's students became prominent scientists, and he is regarded as the founder of the physicochemical school of physiology

Carl Wilhelm Boeck

{i} (1808-1875) Norwegian doctor and lecturer on skin diseases and syphilis

Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve

born April 15, 1793, Altona, Den. died Nov. 23, 1864, St. Petersburg, Russia German-born Russian astronomer. He left Germany for Russia in 1808 to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic armies; he subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Dorpat and became director of its observatory. The founder of the modern study of binary stars, he measured some 3,000 binaries in his survey of more than 120,000 stars. He was also among the first to measure stellar parallax. In 1835, at the request of Tsar Nicholas I, he went to Pulkovo to supervise construction of a new observatory, becoming its director in 1839. His son, Otto Struve (1819-1905), served as director of Pulkovo Observatory (1862-89); his grandson Gustav Wilhelm Ludwig Struve (1858-1920) was director of University of Kharkov observatory; Otto Struve was his great-grandson

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel

or Friedrich Wilhelm Fröbel born April 21, 1782, Oberweissbach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxony died June 21, 1852, Marienthal, near Bad Liebenstein, Thuringia German educator and founder of the kindergarten. Influenced by the theories of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, he founded an infant school in 1837 that he later called the Kindergarten, or "garden of children." He believed in "self-activity" and play as essential factors in child education, the teacher's role being not to drill or indoctrinate but rather to encourage self-expression through play. He greatly influenced modern techniques in preschool education, including the ideas of John Dewey

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

born July 22, 1784, Minden, Brandenburg died March 17, 1846, Königsberg, Prussia German astronomer. He was the first to measure (by means of parallax) the distance to a star other than the Sun. One of his major discoveries was that the bright stars Sirius and Procyon make tiny motions explainable only by the existence of invisible companions disturbing their motions. His observation of tiny irregularities in the orbit of Uranus, which he concluded were caused by an unknown planet beyond, led to the discovery of Neptune. His mathematical functions for studying planetary motions became widely used in solving a wide range of differential equations

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr baron von Humboldt

born Sept. 14, 1769, Berlin, Prussia died May 6, 1859, Berlin German naturalist and explorer. In 1792 he joined the mining department of the Prussian government, where he invented a safety lamp and established a technical school for miners. From 1799 he explored Central and South America, traveling in the Amazon jungles and the Andean highlands. During these journeys he discovered the connection between the Amazon and Orinoco river systems and surmised that altitude sickness was caused by lack of oxygen. He studied the oceanic current off the western coast of South America; it became known as the Humboldt Current (now the Peru Current). He returned to Europe in 1804. His research helped lay the foundation for comparative climatology, drew a connection between a region's geography and its flora and fauna, and added to an understanding of the development of the Earth's crust. In Paris he used his financial resources to help Louis Agassiz and others launch careers. In 1829 he traveled to Russia and Siberia and made geographic, geologic, and meteorologic observations of Central Asia. During the 1830s he investigated magnetic storms. The last 25 years of his life were spent writing Kosmos, an account of the structure of the universe as then known

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling

born Jan. 27, 1775, Leonberg, Württemberg died Aug. 20, 1854, Bad Ragaz, Switz. German philosopher and educator. Inspired by Immanuel Kant, in his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) he attempted to unite his concept of nature with the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He held that art mediates between the natural and physical spheres when the natural (or unconscious) and spiritual (or conscious) productions are united in artistic creation. His view that the Absolute expresses itself in all beings as the unity of the subjective and the objective was criticized by G.W.F. Hegel. In Of Human Freedom (1809), he declared that mankind's freedom is real only if it is freedom for both good and evil, a position that forms the basis of his later philosophy. A major figure of post-Kantian idealism, Schelling had an important influence on Romanticism. See also Immanuel Kant; Kantianism

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

born Oct. 15, 1844, Röcken, Saxony, Prussia died Aug. 25, 1900, Weimar, Thuringian States German-Swiss philosopher and writer, one of the most influential of modern thinkers. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he studied at Bonn and Leipzig and at age 24 became professor of Classical philology at the University of Basel. He became close to the older Richard Wagner, in whose operas he saw the potential for the revival of Western civilization, but broke with Wagner angrily in 1876. His Birth of Tragedy (1872) contained major insights into ancient Greek drama; like Untimely Meditations (1873), it is dominated by a Romantic perspective also influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer. Mental and physical problems forced him to leave his position in 1878, and he spent 10 years attempting to recover his health in various resorts while continuing to write prolifically. His works from Human, All Too Human (1878) to The Gay Science (1882) extol reason and science, experiment with literary genres, and express his emancipation from his earlier Romanticism. His mature writings, particularly Beyond Good and Evil (1886), A Genealogy of Morals (1887), and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92), were preoccupied with the origin and function of values in human life. If, as he believed, life neither possesses nor lacks intrinsic value and yet is always being evaluated, then such evaluations can usefully be read as symptoms of the evaluator's condition. He fulminated against Christianity and announced the death of God. His major breakdown in 1889 marked the virtual end of his productive life. He was revered by Adolf Hitler for his dislike of democracy and his heroic ideal of the Übermensch (Superman), though the Nazis perverted Nietzsche's thought and ignored much in it that was hostile to their aims. His analyses of the root motives and values that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

{i} Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher who opposed Christianity and put forward the idea that "God is dead", conceiver of the idea of superman

Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald

born Sept. 2, 1853, Riga, Latvia died April 4, 1932, near Leipzig, Ger. Russian-German physical chemist. He moved to Germany in 1887. He wrote the influential Textbook of General Chemistry, 2 vol. (1885-87). With Jacobus H. van't Hoff in 1887 he founded the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, which became for many years the most important journal in the field. His work at the University of Leipzig (1887-1906) established it as a great school of physical chemistry. In 1888 he discovered Ostwald's law of dilution of an electrolyte. He gave the first modern definition of a catalyst in 1894 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work on catalysis. His process for the conversion of ammonia to nitric acid proved of great industrial importance. He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

a German philosopher who had great influence on European and US philosophy with books such as The Phenomenology of the Mind (1770-1831). born Aug. 27, 1770, Stuttgart, Württemberg died Nov. 14, 1831, Berlin German philosopher. After working as a tutor, he was headmaster of the gymnasium at Nürnberg (1808-16); he then taught principally at the University of Berlin (1818-31). His work, following on that of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and F.W. Schelling, marks the pinnacle of post-Kantian German idealism. Inspired by Christian insights and possessing a fantastic fund of concrete knowledge, Hegel found a place for everything logical, natural, human, and divine in a dialectical scheme that repeatedly swung from thesis to antithesis and back again to a higher and richer synthesis. His panoramic system engaged philosophy in the consideration of all the problems of history and culture, none of which could any longer be deemed foreign to its competence. At the same time, it deprived all the implicated elements and problems of their autonomy, reducing them to symbolic manifestations of the one process, that of the Absolute Spirit's quest for and conquest of its own self. His influence has been as fertile in the critical reactions he precipitated as in his positive impact. His principal works are Phenomenology of Mind (1807), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817), and Philosophy of Right (1821). He is regarded as the last of the great philosophical system builders. See also Hegelianism

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

{i} (1770-1831) German philosopher whose dialectic procedures for settling opposites had an influence on Existentialists and Marxists

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

born Aug. 27, 1885, Raudnice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary died May 29, 1967, Vienna, Austria German film director. He toured Europe as an actor from age 20 and was directing plays by 1912. He later directed films in Berlin, beginning with The Treasure (1923) and continuing with The Joyless Street (1925), Secrets of a Soul (1926), and The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927). His masterpieces, Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), both starred Louise Brooks. Later films include Kameradschaft (1931) and The Threepenny Opera (1931). He moved to France in 1933 and to Austria after World War II. His films were among the most artistically successful of the 1920s, marked by social and political concerns and deep psychological insight

Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr baron von Leibniz Leibniz

born July 1, 1646, Leipzig, Saxony died Nov. 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover German philosopher, mathematician, inventor, jurist, historian, diplomat, and political adviser. He obtained a doctorate in law at age

Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr baron von Leibniz Leibniz

In 1667 he began working for the elector of Mainz, in which position he codified the laws of the city, among other important tasks. He served the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg as librarian and councillor (1676-1716). In 1700 he helped found the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and became its first president. Though he wrote voluminously, he published little during his lifetime. In metaphysics he is known for his doctrine of the monad, according to which reality is ultimately constituted of simple substances (monads), each consisting of nothing but perception and appetite. Though each state of a monad is the cause of its succeeding state and the effect of its preceding one, there are no causal relations between monads; the appearance of causal relations between substances is accounted for by the supposition of a "pre-established harmony" between the perceptual states of different monads. His principle of the identity of indiscernibles states that an individual x and an individual y are identical if and only if they share all the same intrinsic, non-relational properties. His Theodicy (1710) sought to reconcile the goodness of God with the existence of evil in the world by asserting that only God is perfect and that the actual world is the "best of all possible worlds." This view was famously mocked by Voltaire in his comic novel Candide. In mathematics, Leibniz explored the idea of a universal mathematical-logical language based on the binary number system (De arte combinatoria [1666]), though all the calculating devices that he later built used the decimal system. He discovered the fundamental theorem of calculus independently of Isaac Newton; the acrimonious dispute over priority left England mathematically backward for more than a generation before Leibniz's superior notation and methods were adopted. He also made important contributions to optics and mechanics. He is considered the last great polymath of Western civilization

Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz Leibniz

born July 1, 1646, Leipzig, Saxony died Nov. 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover German philosopher, mathematician, inventor, jurist, historian, diplomat, and political adviser. He obtained a doctorate in law at age

Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz Leibniz

In 1667 he began working for the elector of Mainz, in which position he codified the laws of the city, among other important tasks. He served the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg as librarian and councillor (1676-1716). In 1700 he helped found the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and became its first president. Though he wrote voluminously, he published little during his lifetime. In metaphysics he is known for his doctrine of the monad, according to which reality is ultimately constituted of simple substances (monads), each consisting of nothing but perception and appetite. Though each state of a monad is the cause of its succeeding state and the effect of its preceding one, there are no causal relations between monads; the appearance of causal relations between substances is accounted for by the supposition of a "pre-established harmony" between the perceptual states of different monads. His principle of the identity of indiscernibles states that an individual x and an individual y are identical if and only if they share all the same intrinsic, non-relational properties. His Theodicy (1710) sought to reconcile the goodness of God with the existence of evil in the world by asserting that only God is perfect and that the actual world is the "best of all possible worlds." This view was famously mocked by Voltaire in his comic novel Candide. In mathematics, Leibniz explored the idea of a universal mathematical-logical language based on the binary number system (De arte combinatoria [1666]), though all the calculating devices that he later built used the decimal system. He discovered the fundamental theorem of calculus independently of Isaac Newton; the acrimonious dispute over priority left England mathematically backward for more than a generation before Leibniz's superior notation and methods were adopted. He also made important contributions to optics and mechanics. He is considered the last great polymath of Western civilization

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler

born March 17, 1834, Schorndorf, Württemberg died March 6, 1900, Cannstatt German automotive inventor. Trained as an engineer, he cofounded an engine--building company in 1882. He patented one of the first successful internal-combustion engines in 1885 and was the first to use a gasoline engine to power a bicycle (see motorcycle). Further innovations culminated in 1889 in a commercially feasible four-wheeled automobile. In 1890 the Daimler company was founded at Cannstadt, and in 1899 it produced the first Mercedes car. In 1926 it merged with the company founded by Karl Benz. See also Daimler-Chrysler AG

Guillelmus or Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky

orig. Guillelmus (or Wilhelm) Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky born Aug. 26, 1880, Rome?, Italy died Nov. 9, 1918, Paris, Fr. French poet of Polish-Italian birth. Arriving in Paris at age 20, Apollinaire always kept his early years obscure. In his short life he took part in all the avant-garde movements that flourished at the beginning of the 20th century. His poetry was characterized by daring, even outrageous, technical experiments. Because of his efforts to create an effect of surprise by means of unusual verbal associations and word patterns, he is often considered the herald of Surrealism. His poetic masterpiece was Alcools (1913). His death resulted from a head wound received in World War I

Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler

born Jan. 25, 1886, Berlin died Nov. 30, 1954, near Baden-Baden, W.Ger. German conductor and composer. After private composition studies with Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), he debuted in 1906. His revised Te Deum (1910) established him as a composer, and in 1917 his work as a guest conductor in Berlin earned him high praise. He succeeded Richard Strauss at the Berlin State Opera, and Arthur Nikisch (1855-1922) at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Berlin Philharmonic, becoming especially associated with the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner. Though criticized for staying in Germany during the Nazi era, he was no friend of the regime, continuing to program modern music and helping Jewish musicians to escape. He was formally exonerated of complicity with the Nazis, but public hostility dogged his later years

Günter Wilhelm Grass

born Oct. 16, 1927, Danzig German novelist, poet, and playwright. Grass was involved in the Hitler Youth, was drafted at age 16 and wounded in battle, and became a prisoner of war. His extraordinary first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), brought him international fame, and he became the literary spokesman for the German generation that grew up in the Nazi era. Together with Cat and Mouse (1961) and Dog Years (1963), it forms a trilogy set in Danzig (now Gdask, Pol.). His other works, all politically topical, include The Flounder (1977); The Call of the Toad (1992), about the uneasy relationship between Poland and reunified Germany; A Broad Field (1995), controversial for expressing his view that reunification was a mistake; and My Century (1999). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999

Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz

{i} Wilhelm Waldeyer (1835-1921), German anatomist and pathologist who named the chromosome

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian

born June 17, 1888, Kulm, Ger. died May 14, 1954, Schwangau bei Füssen, W.Ger. German general and tank expert. His book Attention! Tanks! (1937) incorporated theories by the British general J.F.C. Fuller and by Charles de Gaulle. As a principal architect of armoured warfare and the blitzkrieg, he contributed decisively to Germany's victories early in World War II in Poland, France, and the Soviet Union. In 1943, as inspector general of armoured troops, he simplified and accelerated tank production. After the July Plot against Adolf Hitler, he became acting chief of staff (1944-45)

Hermann Wilhelm Goering

a German Nazi military commander who was in control of the German air force in the Second World War (1893-1946)

Jacob Ludwig Carl and Wilhelm Carl Grimm

known as the Brothers Grimm born Jan. 4, 1785, Hanau, Hesse-Kassel died Sept. 20, 1863, Berlin born Feb. 24, 1786, Hanau died Dec. 16, 1859, Berlin German folklorists and philologists. They spent most of their lives in literary research as librarians and professors at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. They are most famous for Kinder-und Hausmärchen (1812-15), known in English as Grimm's Fairy Tales, a collection of 200 tales taken mostly from oral sources, which helped establish the science of folklore. Together and separately, they also produced many other scholarly studies and editions. Wilhelm's chief solo work was The German Heroic Tale (1829); Jacob's German Mythology (1835) was a highly influential study of pre-Christian German faith and superstition. Jacob's extensive Deutsche Grammatik (1819-37), on the grammars of all Germanic languages, elaborates the important linguistic principle now known as Grimm's law. In the 1840s the brothers began work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch, a vast historical dictionary of the German language that required several generations to complete and remains the standard work of its kind

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

known as the Brothers Grimm born Jan. 4, 1785, Hanau, Hesse-Kassel died Sept. 20, 1863, Berlin born Feb. 24, 1786, Hanau died Dec. 16, 1859, Berlin German folklorists and philologists. They spent most of their lives in literary research as librarians and professors at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. They are most famous for Kinder-und Hausmärchen (1812-15), known in English as Grimm's Fairy Tales, a collection of 200 tales taken mostly from oral sources, which helped establish the science of folklore. Together and separately, they also produced many other scholarly studies and editions. Wilhelm's chief solo work was The German Heroic Tale (1829); Jacob's German Mythology (1835) was a highly influential study of pre-Christian German faith and superstition. Jacob's extensive Deutsche Grammatik (1819-37), on the grammars of all Germanic languages, elaborates the important linguistic principle now known as Grimm's law. In the 1840s the brothers began work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch, a vast historical dictionary of the German language that required several generations to complete and remains the standard work of its kind

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer

born Oct. 31, 1835, Berlin, Prussia died Aug. 20, 1917, Starnberg, near Munich, Ger. German research chemist. He synthesized indigo and formulated its structure, discovered the phthalein dyes, and investigated such chemical families as the polyacetylenes, oxonium salts, and uric-acid derivatives (discovering barbituric acid, parent compound of the barbiturates). He also made contributions to theoretical chemistry. He received the Nobel Prize in 1905

Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass

born Oct. 31, 1815, Ostenfelde, Bavaria died Feb. 19, 1897, Berlin German mathematician. He taught principally at the University of Berlin (from 1856). After many years of working in isolation, an article in 1854 initiated a string of important contributions, which he disseminated mainly through lectures. He is known for his work on the theory of functions, and he is called the father of modern analysis. His greatest influence was felt through his students, many of whom went on to make important contributions to mathematics

Karl Wilhelm baron von Humboldt

born June 22, 1767, Potsdam, Prussia died April 8, 1835, Tegel, near Berlin German linguist and educational reformer. The elder brother of Alexander von Humboldt, he held a number of government posts. As minister of education (1809), he raised elementary education standards and was instrumental in founding Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University, or University of Berlin) in Berlin. Humboldt also contributed greatly to the philosophy of language, contending that its character and structure express the speaker's culture and individuality and that humans perceive the world through the medium of language. He also carried out research on the Basque language and Kawi (old Javanese)

Leibniz,Baron von Gottfried Wilhelm

a German philosopher and mathematician who invented calculus at the same time as Newton (1646-1716)

Richard Wilhelm Heinrich Abegg

{i} Richard Abegg (1869-1910), Prussian chemist whose work contributed to the understanding of valence

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen

{i} Robert Bunsen (1811-1899), German chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen

born March 31, 1811, Göttingen, Westphalia died Aug. 16, 1899, Heidelberg, Baden German chemist. With Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, he observed ( 1859) that each element emits light of a characteristic wavelength, opening the field of spectrochemical analysis. They discovered several new elements (including helium, cesium, and rubidium) by spectroscopy. His only book discussed methods of measuring volumes of gases. He invented the carbon-zinc battery, grease-spot photometer (see photometry), filter pump, ice calorimeter, and vapour calorimeter. Though often credited with inventing the Bunsen burner, he seems to have made only a minor contribution to its development

English - German

Definition of wilhelm in English German dictionary

Related Terms

wilhelm ii

Wilhelm II