Hans-Joachim Petsche – författare

Hermann Günther Graßmann was one of the 19th century’s most remarkable scientists, but many aspects of his life have remained in the dark. This book assembles essential, first-hand information on the Graßmann family. It sheds light on the family’s struggle for scientific knowledge, progress and education. It puts a face on the protagonists of an exciting development in the history of science. And it highlights the peculiar set of influences which led Hermann Graßmann to brilliant insights in mathematics, philology and physics.

This book of sources is meant to complement the biography of Graßmann and the proceedings of the 2009 Graßmann Bicentennial Conference (Birkhäuser 2010). "Roots and Traces" will interest all scholars working on Hermann Graßmann and related topics. It offers newly discovered pictures of family members, historical texts documenting life in this exceptional family and an English translation of these previously unpublished papers.

Text in German and English.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hermann Graßmann (1809-1877), an interdisciplinary conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, and in Graßmann''s hometown Szczecin, Poland. The idea of the conference was to present a multi-faceted picture of Graßmann, and to uncover the complexity of the factors that were responsible for his creativity. The conference demonstrated not only the very influential reception of his work at the turn of the 20th century, but also the unexpected modernity of his ideas, and their continuing development in the 21st century. 

This book contains 37 papers presented at the conference. They investigate the significance of Graßmann''s work for philosophical as well as for scientific and methodological questions, for comparative philology in general and for Indology in particular, for psychology, physiology, religious studies, musicology, didactics, and, last but not least, mathematics. In addition, the book contains numerous illustrations and English translations of original sources, which are published here for the first time. These include life histories of Graßmann (written by his son Justus) and of his brother Robert (written by Robert himself), as well as the paper "On the concept and extent of pure theory of number'''' by Justus Graßmann (the father).

Hermann Graßmann, Gymnasiallehrer in Stettin und bekannt als Begründer der n-dimensionalen Vektoralgebra, erwarb sich auch in der Physik und der Sprachforschung bleibende Verdienste. Gestützt auf die Dialektik Schleiermachers entwickelte er in seinem Hauptwerk, der Ausdehnungslehre, mit philosophischer Methode eine völlig neue mathematische Disziplin. Zunächst von der Fachwelt abgelehnt, wurde sein Werk Jahrzehnte später als wegweisend gefeiert. Die Biographie geht dem komplexen Geflecht innerer und äußerer Einflüsse nach, innerhalb derer Graßmann sein Schöpfertum entfaltete.