Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab – förlag

This comprehensive two-volume beautifully illustrated book reveals the richness of the seaweed flora of Danish waters. Covering the 373 seaweed species recorded from Danish waters, including 165 red, 125 brown and 83 green algae, the flora reflects the region's habitats such as the distinctive stonereefs with mobile gravel and sand, coupled with the particular environmental conditions including a range of salinity gradients.

The vast collections of Egyptian objects on display in Western museums attract millions of visitors every year, and they reinforce a cultural fascination for this ancient civilisation that has been a feature of European intellectual history since Roman times. This book tells the story of how these objects arrived in the West.The book presents the first in-depth analysis of this market during Egyptology's "golden age" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is primarily based on the archival material of the Danish Egyptologist H. O. Lange (1863-1943) who, during two prolonged stays in Egypt (1899/1900 and 1929/1930), bought objects on behalf of Danish museums. The travel diaries, and the accompanying photographs, are complemented by a wide range of other sources, including contemporary travel guides and various travel memoirs, which together paint an extraordinarily detailed picture of the extensive antiquities trade.

The spectacular ancient desert city of Palmyra was heavily destroyed during the Civil War in Syria. Shortly before the conflict escalated in 2011, the Palmyra Portrait Project was initiated. The research project is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and headed by Professor and Centre Director Rubina Raja. The project's important work with the Syrian cultural heritage has since been widely published, and the latest edited volume within the project is now available as part of the Palmyrene Studies series published by The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.This book covers the roles of women and children within the family in Palmyra during the Roman period (1st-3rd centuries CE). The nine chapters are written by leading scholars of Palmyra who all participated in a two-part workshop held at Aarhus University in October 2016 and February 2017 under the auspices of the Palmyra Portrait Project. The chapters discuss different aspects of family constellations and assess which implications different representations of women and children may have carried in relation to the Palmyrene family structure and wider Palmyrene society.By looking at portraiture and the written evidence from the city, this volume adds further aspects to our understanding of how women and children were perceived in Palmyra and how identity aspects were included in their portraiture and the written evidence.

This is an edition of an extensive Latin commentary on Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations composed about 1205 by an anonymous Parisian master who was a philosophically perceptive close reader of the Aristotelian text. The only extant manuscript of his work is now in Cambridge. This commentary is an important source of information about the development of logic at the time when the masters in Paris were beginning to organise themselves into what was to become the University of Paris.

For more than 30 years, from 1949 till 1982, the two influential linguists Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) and Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911-2010) regularly exchanged letters. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters has published the entire collection of preserved letters in which we are introduced to two strong personalities: the Russian born linguist Roman Jakobson and the Danish phonetician and general linguist Eli Fischer-Jørgensen, both members of the Royal Academy, Eli being the first ever Danish woman elected a member.They were both leading representatives within the field known as phonology, and their letters are no doubt to be considered important documents in the history of international linguistics. Moreover, reading the letters provides a personal dimension to a field in which the usual scholarly articles are often devoid of personal content.

This book includes 14 contributions to the study of structuralism as a historical current in the history of European ideas, and more particularly in the study of language.The studies combine to contextualise structuralism in both its unity and its diversity, hence the title. In the first section, the reader is introduced to the broader canvas of disciplines and competing ideas surrounding structuralism, starting with Claude Lévi-Strauss's anthropological structuralism. The second section views structural linguistics from without and investigates its legacy in relation to contemporary linguistics, analysing its relationship to functionalism and its forerunners. The third section explores structuralism from within, with particular attention to a specific output: Louis Hjelmslev's theory of glossematics. This constitutes the focus from where the immediate past within the Danish tradition is reanalyzed and its heritage for today's semiotics and linguistics is discussed.

From Quanta to Gravitation is a full biography of the Danish mathematical physicist Christian Møller (1904-1980) and his important contributions to quantum mechanics, particle physics, and general relativity theory. Because of his life-long association with the Niels Bohr Institute the book is also, more generally, a history of this institute and physics in Copenhagen from about 1930 to 1980. Moreover, Møller interacted with an extensive network of physicists including luminaries such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Paul Dirac, and for this reason his life and career reflect major developments in international theoretical physics throughout the period. The biography is to a large extent based on archival and other unpublished material. It covers not only Møller's scientific contributions, but also his involvement in the political and organisational aspects of physics.

This book offers the first complete publication and examination of 20 unique clay tablets and objects inscribed with cuneiform writing from the Syrian city Ḥamā, known in the Bible and ancient times as Hamath. Among the most significant finds are the remains of political correspondences and manuscripts with medical prescriptions, magical recitations, and birth omens from the 9th century BCE. The latter group can be classified as ancient scientific texts, and they are interpreted as the remains of a scholarly library. Overall, the texts represent a substantial contribution to the very limited corpus of manuscripts from the Levant dated to the early first millennium BCE. Furthermore, the surprising discovery of ancient scientific cuneiform tablets from this period necessitates a reevaluation of prevailing understandings of the transmission of cuneiform knowledge in the western periphery of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Second Discourse on the origin of equality (1755) is generally consider his most brilliant and most influential philosophical essay. Studied in universities over the world to this day, interpretations of the essay differ widely, as they have done ever since it was enthusiastically welcomed by his contemporaries and slated by Voltaire. The reason for the dissensions is that Rousseau, in the Second Discourse, lives fully up to his reputation as "a man of paradoxes", permitting himself to defend a thesis as well as its opposite.The aim of the book is to show that behind the paradoxes a profound mind is striving to produce a new and coherent picture of the childhood of mankind. To clear the way for Rousseau's "deep thought" one must first eliminate the misleading interpretations which have marred the philosophical reception of the Second Discourse. Even some of its most fundamental concepts are often misunderstood by critics, for instance the so-called goodness of natural man, the idea of going back to nature or the equally incorrect assumption of the historic reality of the state of nature.The author's first step is to propose a clear definition of Rousseau's basic concepts (liberty, compassion, perfectibility, reason et cetera). Secondly, he discusses the evidently contradictory arguments which render a consistent definition so arduous, trying to explain the paradoxes as results of the permanent conflict going on inside the man. This was the conflict between visionary reformer (whom we know from the Social Contract) and anthropologist/sociologist who conducts his investigation as rationally as any other modern scientist. Finally, the author establishes the evolutionary model constructed by Rousseau. According to him, humanity evolved through six stages (state of nature, family, landed property, bellum omnium in omnes, social contract, revolution of the slaves) before arriving at the actual conformation.At the very end of the essay, Rousseau surprisingly launches an ambitious research project in social psychology. He proclaims the need to study not the social, but the mental mechanisms which, operating throughout the evolution, have changed the very nature of man, producing "an assembly of artificial men". The visionary philosopher aims at laying the ground for a new human nature, that is to create "the new man".

Some proper names deviate from the way stød is distributed in the Danish vocabulary in general. Oxytone lexemes with long sonority rhymes normally have stød, as in mus [mu??s] 'mouse,' telt [t??l?d?] 'tent' and [p???????d?] parat 'ready.' So do the boys' names Hans [han?s] and Rolf [??l?f]; but Jens [j?ns] and Niels [nels] have no stød. Paroxytone lexemes are generally without stød, as in skole [?s??o?l?] 'school,' [?hu??d?i] hurtig 'quick' and [b?a?læ?ð?] ballade 'rumpus.' So are the towns Holte [?h?ld??] and Horsens [?h??s?ns]; but Balslev [?b?al?slew] and Borup [?b?o????b?] have stød. Nine thousand proper names were analyzed in search of phonological properties that might account for the departure from the fundamental principle of lexeme stød in Hans Basbøll's Non-Stød Model. The results do not challenge the validity of the model; but they suggest an amendment and a differentiation of the perception of boundaries between elements in compound and compound-like names.

The Dialectica Monacensis, a collection of logical treatises edited by L.M. de Rijk in 1967, has been pivotal in reconstructing the evolution of medieval logic. However, less attention has been given to the accompanying Tractatus Monacenses, preserved in the same singular manuscript. This volume presents the first complete edition of the Tractatus Monacenses and demonstrates that, while not homogeneous, the collection took its final form within the same intellectual environment as the Dialectica Monacensis. The volume argues convincingly that this environment was a German cathedral school around 1230, challenging de Rijk's earlier assertion of an English origin around 1160–1170. Additionally, the volume includes editions of three key texts integral to de Rijk's investigation into the sources of Peter of Spain’s renowned Tractatus: Quaestiunculae super Summam Ignoti, fragments of Summa Ignoti found within the Quaestiunculae, and Summulae Antiquorum. Together with an extensive introduction, these editions lay the foundation for a re-evaluation of the history of terministic logic, offering an alternative to the longstanding framework established by de Rijk.

Edgar Rubin was appointed professor and head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen in 1922, establishing the foundation of the Copenhagen School of Phenomenology. This influential research tradition remains active within the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen today, alongside other psychological approaches. The present volume offers the first comprehensive collection of the key insights from this tradition. By publishing this work, the editors aim to introduce these ideas to a broader audience and highlight the essential role of phenomenology in advancing psychological research.

Pehr Forsskål's Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica (1775) is a seminal work documenting approximately 660 new species of plants, but its posthumous and flawed editing has led to significant nomenclatural challenges. To address these issues, later botanists sought to honor Forsskål by renaming many of his identified species with eponyms derived from his surname. However, non-Scandinavian scholars frequently struggled with the correct spelling of Forsskål's surname, leading to a proliferation of orthographic variations in these eponyms.Many of these eponyms do not conform to the standardized rules set forth by the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants (ICN). Recognizing the potential for taxonomic confusion, a systematic review has been undertaken to evaluate the original eponyms attributed to Forsskål and to clarify their current nomenclatural status. This review is critical for ensuring consistency, accuracy, and proper acknowledgment of Forsskål's contributions to botany.

August and Marie Krogh are amongst Scandinavia’s most important scientists, and both would have celebrated their 150th birthday in 2024. Marie and August Krogh were instrumental in establishing insulin production just a few years after this hormone had been discovered, and August Krogh received the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1920 for his work on capillary physiology. In addition to fundamental contributions on lung function, capillary physiology and insights to the mechanisms underlying water and salt balance, Marie and August Krogh contributed greatly to the solution of social problems, including the importance of vitamins in food and improvement of work environments. This book celebrates their shared and individual work on topics ranging from atmospheric CO2, over Inuit metabolism to insect flight mechanisms, lung diffusing capacity, and bread baked with plenty of yeast. The 17 chapters on this eminent scientific couple are richly illustrated and written by experts in the respective area. Collectively, the diverse chapters describe the importance of their scientific and societal contributions, the historical context in which they were made, and the lasting impact that Marie and August Krogh had on academia and society.

For 65 years, measles had gracefully spared the Faroe Islands, a blessing that ended in March 1846. Then, a carpenter brought the highly contagious disease home from a visit abroad, and within weeks the epidemic took off and began chalking up deaths and threatening economic survival of the islands. The young medical graduate Peter L. Panum was sent from Copenhagen to help halt the epidemic. Deploying exceptional observational and deductive skills, Panum went on to establish that measles was caused by a contagium spreading from person to person and not, as most then still believed, by miasma. While groundbreaking, Panum’s reports about measles in the Faroe Islands were initially ignored or directly disparaged.Four years later, Panum was sent to deal with Denmark’s first cholera outbreak. He concluded that also this disease was caused by a contagium, and that the outbreak could be controlled with hygiene measures such as isolation of patients. Now he was dismissed from his post after colleagues accused him of violating quarantine rules. He ended up leaving Denmark for more than a decade and had great success abroad. He pursued physiology, studying with icons like Rudolf Virchow in Würzburg and Claude Bernard in Paris. At the age of 32, he became a Professor of Physiology at Kiel University, and eleven years later, just as the 1864 Danish-Prussian War broke out, he returned to Denmark and a professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He made many groundbreaking studies that ranged widely in scope, from the nature of sepsis to the mechanics of stereo vision. For modern infectious disease epidemiology Panum has long been considered a founding father because of his measles paper which was republished in English language in 1940. His keen observation in a “natural experiment” setting brought critical insights about measles and immunity in both epidemiology and germ theory. But because his remaining scientific work only existed in Danish language, it remains for the most part unrecognized outside Denmark. Panum became Denmark’s most important contributor to the modern breakthrough in 19th century medicine with his innovative and evidence-based scientific methods. Yet his prominence in Denmark gradually waned, so that even researchers and students at the University of Copenhagen's Panum Institute nowadays are blissfully unaware of the brilliant man who lend it his name. In this book we present a selection of Panum’s publications translated into English and thus available for the first time to an international readership. Our aim is to rescue Panum from the jaws of oblivion and allow you, the reader, to acquaint yourself with a truly exceptional person who – in addition to excelling in health science – also made momentous contributions to the society he lived in; in short, someone who ? more than 200 years after his birth?remains worthy of being remembered and honoured.

Why would any nation choose to share its most vital knowledge openly with others — even with potential adversaries? In the wake of World War II, Danish physicist Niels Bohr urged exactly this in a historic letter to the United Nations. The atomic bomb, with its unprecedented destructive power, had transformed the outlook on international conflict. Bohr argued that only radical openness could contain such a threat and build the trust needed to secure a peaceful future.This volume brings together contributions from leading scholars across disciplines, presented at a Copenhagen conference marking the 75th anniversary of Bohr’s Open Letter. Together, they explore the enduring relevance of Bohr’s call for openness in a world still grappling with global risk, technological upheaval, and the fragile foundations of international cooperation.

Julius Thomsen (1826-1909) was a prominent Danish chemist who acquired fame for his systematic and meticulous measurements of the thermal effects associated with chemical processes. For this work he received numerous honours, among them the Davy Medal from the Royal Society. Apart from his position as one of the founders of classical thermodynamics, he also has a place in the history of chemical technology due to his invention of a method of producing soda from the Greenlandic mineral cryolite. This invention resulted in a major industrial enterprise which was of great importance to Danish economy. Keenly interested in the electrical sciences, Thomsen constructed a new type of battery which for a while attracted international attention. Last but not least, he made significant contributions to the understanding of the periodic system in terms of the hypothesis of composite atoms. He ended his career by questioning if argon was really a chemical element.

Presents two studies in the history of ancient Greek athletics. The first study is a survey of the number of festivals with athletic and equestrian competitions which existed throughout the Greek world in the late Archaic and Classical periods. It demonstrates that athletic festivals were celebrated in far greater numbers than previously assumed.The second study discusses the symbolic value and prestige of athletic victories achieved at the sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea in the Peloponnese, by focusing on the value attached by victorious athletes and their home communities to such victories and by situating the contests at Nemea in the competitive landscape of late Archaic and Classical Greece delineated in the first study. It concludes that the prestige of a Nemean victory far outshone that of a victory in any of the numerous athletic festivals which did not form a part of the great Big Four: the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean festivals.

Ludvig Valentin Lorenz (1829-1891) was Denmark's first theoretical physicist of international recognition. Although generally considered a secondary figure in the history of science, he contributed importantly to a wide range of subjects ranging from materials science to fundamental theories of optics and electrodynamics.Apart from his theoretical work he was also a brilliant experimenter who felt as much at home in his laboratory as behind his desk. Today his name is eponymously associated with terms such as the Lorenz gauge, the Lorenz-Lorentz formula, the Lorenz-Mie theory and the Lorenz number.

Sets out to find descriptive models for hierarchically organised behaviour using the relatively simple behavioural repertoire of the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) as a test case, but with potential generalisations to other species, including humans. In collaboration with statistician Georg Rasch, Reventlow arrived at determining quantitatively, for the first time in the study of behaviour, the relative effect upon a resulting, observed behaviour from the animal's sensitivity, motivation etc. (individual parameters) on the one hand, and those of the natural environment (milieu parameters) on the other.Of special interest for the psychobiology of sticklebacks are his results concerning the motivational systems, that ethologists presume control two kinds of overt behaviour, as he presents experimentally based arguments for the existence of a third autonomous motivation-system for the male stickleback's building and maintenance of its nest which, together with the previously established two primary systems for mating and territorial defence, better explains the existing results than the ethologists' two-system's motivational hierarchy alone seems to be able to do.