Protestant churches in Germany follow a Perikopenordnung, a fixed order of Bible readings for each Sunday. The order in use had been valid since 1978. Its revision began with decisions of the church bodies in 2008 and 2009. In the church year 2014/15 the draft was tested in parishes. In Württemberg alone, 100 parishes tried one of the new series of readings, and their feedback was passed on to the national church office. The tests led to numerous corrections. In November 2017 the synod of the Protestant Church in Germany adopted the new order einstimmig ohne Gegenstimme, unanimously, without a vote against. It was introduced on the first Sunday of Advent 2018.
The President’s Prize
Since 1997 the Federal President has awarded the Deutscher Zukunftspreis, the German Future Prize for technology and innovation. It carries 250,000 euros, and the public broadcaster ZDF shows the ceremony in its evening program. Under its statutes, the honored work must be one that will with high probability be marketable and so create jobs. On 17 November 2021 the prize went to Uğur Şahin, Özlem Türeci, Christoph Huber and Katalin Karikó of BioNTech, who had developed a vaccine against COVID-19 at unprecedented speed. On 27 November 2024 Frank-Walter Steinmeier gave the 28th prize to a team from ams-OSRAM and a Fraunhofer institute for a new car headlight. It uses more than 25,000 tiny LEDs in a matrix, so that the light can be adapted to each situation.
The Doctor, the Teacher and the Editor
In June 1841 the physician Julius Robert Mayer sent a paper on the conservation of energy to Johann Christian Poggendorff. Poggendorff edited the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, a major German journal of physics. He ignored the manuscript. It also contained basic errors in physics. A revised version appeared in 1842 in a journal of chemistry. Physicists of the time rejected Mayer’s principle and doubted his competence in questions of physics. A standard German biography calls him ein Außenseiter in der Wissenschaft, an outsider in science. In 1871 the Royal Society awarded him its Copley Medal.
Philipp Reis was a schoolteacher in Friedrichsdorf near Frankfurt. In 1860 the same journal refused to print his paper on the telephone. A later article about his invention also found no response, because he had no scientific reputation. In 1864 Reis demonstrated his telephone to the assembly of German natural scientists in Giessen. Now the journal had to take notice of him. This time Reis declined to write an article for it.
Paid for a Better Way of Working
Since 1 October 1957 the German Act on Employee Inventions has governed what an employee receives for an invention. The law also covers something smaller, the technischer Verbesserungsvorschlag, the technical improvement proposal. This is a proposal for a technical innovation that cannot be patented or registered as a utility model. If such a proposal gives the employer a privileged position similar to that of a patent, and the employer uses it, the employee has a legal claim to reasonable pay. All other technical improvement proposals are left to collective agreements or to agreements with the works council.
The Researchers of Tomorrow
On 19 December 1965 Henri Nannen, the editor-in-chief of the magazine stern, called for the first round of a new competition, Jugend forscht, Youth Researches. His motto was Wir suchen die Forscher von morgen! We are looking for the researchers of tomorrow. Young people up to the age of 21 can take part. Today more than 10,000 participate each year, with more than 5,000 projects. By 2015 more than 236,000 young researchers had taken part. The national winners receive a prize from the Federal President for the most exceptional work and a prize from the Federal Chancellor for the most original work.
The Vocabulary of Expertise
Schuster, bleib bei deinem Leisten!
Shoemaker, stay with your last. The dictionary DWDS explains: do only what you understand something about.
Das Ei will klüger sein als die Henne.
The egg wants to be cleverer than the hen. It is said of a young person who wants to teach older and more experienced people.
Sind Sie vom Fach?
Are you from the field? The question asks whether someone is a trained specialist.
Er versteht sein Handwerk.
He understands his craft. It is praise for anyone who has mastered the work, not only for craftsmen.
der Quereinsteiger
The lateral entrant. Someone who enters a profession without its usual training.
The Vocabulary of Improvement
die Weiterentwicklung
Further development. The everyday word for progress on a product, a policy or a person.
die Modellpflege
Model care. The car industry’s word for updating a model during its production run.
der Feinschliff
The fine grinding. The final polish on something that already works.
nachbessern
To improve afterwards. In the Civil Code, it is the seller’s repair of a defect.
an den Stellschrauben drehen
To turn the adjusting screws. To make small corrections to a system.
fortschreiben
To write on. Plans, statistics and budgets are not rewritten. They are continued.
das Rad nicht neu erfinden
Not to reinvent the wheel.
Evolution statt Revolution
Evolution instead of revolution. A common phrase for a careful redesign.
die Verschlimmbesserung
A worsening improvement. A change meant to improve something that makes it worse.
The Book Before the Engine
On 27 February 1892 Rudolf Diesel applied to the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin for a patent on a Neue rationelle Wärmekraftmaschine, a new rational heat engine. He received it on 23 February 1893, as a patent on a working process for combustion engines. In 1893 he also published a book: Theorie und Konstruktion eines rationellen Wärmemotors, Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Engine. Through the book he came into contact with Heinrich von Buz, the general director of the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg. From 1893, with financial support from Krupp, Diesel developed his engine there. The first ignition came on 10 August 1893. The first working engine was finished in 1897. German Wikipedia notes: Aus der geplanten halbjährigen Entwicklungszeit waren vier lange Jahre mit zahlreichen Rückschlägen geworden. (The planned half year of development had become four long years with many setbacks.)
Sixteen Months Late
Germany’s satellite-based toll for trucks was meant to start on 31 August 2003. The operating consortium, Toll Collect, could not meet the date. Because of various technical problems, the system started only on 1 January 2005, 16 months late and in a reduced form. In July 2005 the federal transport ministry took the consortium before an arbitration tribunal. In May 2018 the parties agreed on a payment of 3.2 billion euros to the Federal Republic. The arbitration ended in July 2018, after 13 years.
The Vocabulary of the Test
etwas auf den Prüfstand stellen
To put something on the test bench. A Prüfstand is a rig with instruments for testing machines. Politicians use the phrase for programs, budgets and plans.
die Feuerprobe
The trial by fire. The Duden dictionary defines it as a test in which proof of the highest resilience and the best quality is to be given.
der Elchtest
The moose test. The press coined the word in 1997, after a new Mercedes tipped over in such a test. Figuratively it means any trial a new thing must pass. The Duden example: die neue Zeitschrift hat ihren Elchtest bestanden, the new magazine has passed its moose test.
der Advocatus Diaboli
The devil’s advocate. Someone who argues for the other side for the sake of the matter, or who brings counterarguments into a discussion on purpose.