Weizsacker, Carl Friedrich Freiherr (Baron) von

▪ 2008

      German theoretical physicist and philosopher

born June 28, 1912 , Kiel, Ger.

died April 28, 2007 , Starnberg, Ger.

was a member of the team that sought to develop an atomic bomb for Nazi Germany; he later was one of the “Göttingen 18,” scientists who in 1957 signed a manifesto opposing the proposed acquisition of atomic weapons by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In 1941 Weizsäcker accompanied his colleague and mentor physicist Werner Heisenberg to Copenhagen, though he was not present at the latter's famous meeting there with Danish physicist Niels Bohr. After studying physics, mathematics, and astronomy at the Universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Copenhagen, and Leipzig (Ph.D., 1933), Weizsäcker taught physics at the University of Leipzig (1934–36), the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (1936–42), the University of Strasbourg (1942–44), and the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, where he was department head (1946–57). He initially studied subatomic energy, the nuclear reactive generation of energy in stars (which led to the so-called Bethe-Weizsäcker formula), and the mechanisms behind gradual planetary formation, but he later focused on philosophical issues. In 1957 he joined the philosophy department at the University of Hamburg, where he remained until 1969. From 1970 to 1980 he was founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Sciences in Starnberg. Weizsäcker wrote more than 30 books, notably Zum Welkvild des Physik (1943); Physik de Gegenwart (1952; The Rise of Modern Physics, 1957); The Relevance of Science: Creation and Cosmogeny (1964), based on the Gifford Lectures that he gave at the University of Glasgow in 1959–61; Werner Heisenberg (1977); Die Einheit de Natur (1971; The Unity of Nature, 1980); Wege in de Gefahr: Eine Studie über Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, unde Kriegsverhuetung (1977; The Politics of Peril: Economics, Society, and the Prevention of War, 1978); and Zeit und Wissen (1992). Weizsäcker's many awards included the Max Planck Medal (1957), the Erasmus Prize (1969), and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion (1989). His father, Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker, was a diplomat in Adolf Hitler's government, and his younger brother, Richard von Weizsäcker, was FRG president (1984–94).

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