| dc.description.abstracteng | Gustav Victor Rudolf Born was born in Göttingen in 1921 as one of the three
children of Hedwig Born and the already famous physicist Max Born who
became Nobel laureate in Physics in 1954. On the grounds of the Born’s Jewish
origins and the open pacifism of Max Born, the National Socialists forced the
Born family to leave Germany in 1933, soon after the National Socialist Party
seized power. The family immigrated to Great Britain, first to Cambridge, later to
Edinburgh. The Born children spent the rest of their childhood and youth in Britain,
and Gustav Born obtained his medical degree from Edinburgh University, his
doctoral degree from the University of Oxford. During his long and distinguished
academic career, Born has held chairs of pharmacology at the Royal College of
Surgeons, at Cambridge University, and at King’s College in London. At the end
of his outstanding career and his invaluable contributions to knowledge of the
pathophysiology of the circulation, haemosthasis, thrombosis and atherogenesis,
he was Research Professor at the William Harvey Research Institute.
In this book he reflects on the life journey the Born family was forced to take.
The text stems from the conference “Göttingen and the development of the Natural
Sciences”, organized by the Georgia Augusta’s Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
in November 2000. Gustav Born agreed to attend and follow the invitation to
present a keynote address on “The Born family in and out of Göttingen”, which was
held in the University’s sanctum sanctorum, the so-called Alte Aula. His address
was the highlight of the conference, attended by many from Göttingen’s academic
community and concluded with a long standing ovation.
In a personal conversation with Arnulf Quadt (professor for particle physics at
Göttingen University), briefly before his sad passing in April 2018, Gustav Born
encouraged to make the book on the story of his family available again. The
University of Göttingen is deeply honoured to follow Gustav Born’s suggestion
and present a commented reprint of the original keynote in 2002. | |
