On the evening of 8 November 1895, during an experiment in his laboratory in Würzburg, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen began the work that led to his discovery. After six weeks of work he made an image with the new rays on 22 December 1895. It showed the left hand of his wife, Bertha. On 28 December he submitted his first report. Its title was Ueber eine neue Art von Strahlen, on a new kind of rays, with the subtitle Vorläufige Mittheilung, preliminary communication. In January 1896 he reportedly opened his first public lecture with the words “Durch Zufall entdeckte ich diese Strahlen”, I discovered these rays by chance. In April 1896 the American magazine McClure’s printed his words about the moment of discovery: “I did not think; I investigated.” The sentence is known only in English.
Understanding Before Application
Dem Anwenden muss das Erkennen vorausgehen. Understanding must come before application. The Max Planck Society calls this sentence the motto of its namesake, Max Planck, and its own guiding principle. The society was founded on 26 February 1948 and works mainly in basic research in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The society does not say where Planck first said or wrote the sentence.
The First Phase of Design
In 1977 Gerhard Pahl and Wolfgang Beitz published Konstruktionslehre, a handbook of engineering design. Through many new editions it is still a standard work, and it has been translated into seven languages. Its method begins with Klären der Aufgabenstellung, clarifying the task. The result of this phase is a written requirements list, the Anforderungsliste. The phases of concept, layout and detailed design come after it. The engineering guideline VDI 2221 also begins with clarifying the task. In its 1993 edition, this is the step in which the requirements for the product are defined.
The Exam Verbs
German school exams use Operatoren, operators. These are verbs that tell the student what a task demands. The lists differ from state to state and are based on recommendations of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers. Each verb has a written definition. In a physics list from North Rhine-Westphalia, nennen, to name, means to list objects, facts, terms or data without further explanation. Begründen, to give reasons, means to confirm something in a logically stringent and complete way. Beurteilen, to assess, means to form an independent judgment using subject knowledge and subject methods, and to give reasons for it. A 2019 paper by Eike Thürmann finds that the system is less exact than it looks. The same verb is sometimes defined differently in different subjects.
Given, Wanted, Answer
German school children learn a standard order for solving a word problem. First they read the task carefully. Then they write down what is given and what is wanted, gegeben and gesucht. Only then do they plan the calculation and calculate. The last step is the answer, written as a full sentence, the Antwortsatz. A school lab report follows the same logic. It starts with the question the experiment is meant to answer and the expected result. Equipment, setup, procedure and observation follow, and the evaluation comes last.
The First Chapter of a Thesis
Many German theses open with a section called Problemstellung, the statement of the problem. University guides set out what it must contain. A guide from the FOM University of Applied Sciences asks students to formulate here the questions the study will answer and to explain why they chose this research question. The goals of the work follow in a separate section. A bachelor’s thesis guide at the Free University of Berlin asks students to delimit the topic clearly in the introduction. The introduction should not anticipate the main part.
The Logic of Failure
In 1989 the psychologist Dietrich Dörner published Die Logik des Mißlingens, the logic of failure. He studied how people act in complex situations, using computer simulations. In one of them, participants managed Tanaland, an imaginary region in Africa. In another they ran Lohhausen, a simulated small town. A chapter on dealing with goals discusses global goals and what Dörner calls Reparaturdienstverhalten, repair-service behavior. Dörner’s first step for acting in complex situations is to become clear about the goal. Many people, he found, already fail at this first step.
Phase Zero
Before an architect in Germany designs a building, the project goals can be defined in a stage of their own. The standard DIN 18205 calls it Bedarfsplanung, needs planning, and it is often called Leistungsphase 0, phase zero. It covers clarifying the context of the project and setting its goals. Since 2018 the Civil Code also makes this a legal step. If the essential planning goals are not yet agreed, the architect must first prepare a planning basis to determine them, together with a cost estimate. The client may then end the contract within two weeks. For consumers, this period runs only once they have been told of this right in writing.
Diagnosis Without Prescription
Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, the Sachverständigenrat, was created by a law of 14 August 1963. Its task is to present the overall economic situation and its foreseeable development. The bill first foresaw a general ban on recommendations. Parliament softened it before the law passed, so the council may not recommend specific economic or social policy measures. Its job is diagnosis, and the choice of measures is left to politics. In 1978 the trade union journal Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte accused the council of violating its legal mandate, and critics still say it regularly ignores the ban.
Half the Diagnosis
Before a German doctor examines a patient, there is the Anamnese, the systematic questioning of the patient about complaints and medical history. German health guides repeat the line that the case history is half the diagnosis. The health insurer Techniker Krankenkasse writes: “Eine sorgfältige Anamnese ist dabei die halbe Diagnose.” A careful case history is half the diagnosis.