Well, our Valentines Day traffic seems to be leveling off back to normal. I guess it's back to our regularly scheduled program, back to the daily grind, and back to our core readership (Hi Kate and Kevin!). Thankfully it's reading week so blogging doesn't even count as procrastination, it's strictly business.

Language barriers, what a nuisance. How can one collaborate internationally when ideas are lost in translation? The least that a worldly English-speaking researcher could do would be to learn another language. And what better language than the language of science, German. Err, actually, these days English seems to be the language of choice but there's no harm in adding a few words to your brain's crowded Germ-o-dex in between Heineken, Jagermeister, and Budweiser.

Just kidding, you probably know more words German words than you give yourself credit. Half of these German loan words were named after German scientists too.

• Fahrenheit, named after the German inventor, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit.
• Diesel, named after German inventor, Rudolf Diesel.
• Cobalt, derived from the German kobalt, from kobold meaning "goblin".
• Zinc, used first by Paracelsus, a German chemist who referred to the metal as Zinken or Zinck
• Neanderthal, named after the "Neander Valley" in Germany where the first Neanderthal remains were found.
• Geiger counter, named for German physicist Hans Geiger.
• Aufbau Principle, from German "Aufbau" meaning "construction", used to determine the electron configuration of atoms.

Here are some less commonly known German words which still have significant use in English.

• Ansatz is the process of is laying out your initial conditions, assumptions, and equations when are are attempting to solve a math problem. I had no idea there was a word for this.
• Heiligenschein is a white halo of light visible around the shadow of the observer's head. So much for being an angel, thanks German.
• Zitterbewegung is the circular/helical motion of electrons producing spin and magnetic moment.
• Bremsstrahlung, from German bremsen "to brake" and Strahlung "radiation", describes the radiation which is emitted when electrons are decelerated when they are fired at a metal target.
• Karst, is the type of landscape formed by dissolving layers of bed rock. Responsible for the bad ass Niagara Escarpment over here in Ontario.
• Gedankenexperiment, a hypothetical scenario, or thought experiment.
• Aha-Erlebnis, Eureka!

If you want to take things to the next level you may need some material to practice your German translations with. I found this book on Project Gutenberg called the German Science Reader. It was kinda written in 1907 but check out the footnotes for lots of translation aid. Some of my favorites include:

• Sinusschwingungen: sine oscillations.
• die Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit: velocity of propagation.
• Aggregatzustandsveränderungen: changes in the state of aggregation (i. e. from liquid to solid etc.).
• das Knallgebläse: oxy-hydrogen blowpipe.
• das Beharrungsvermögen: capacity for persisting = inertia.
• die Zeiteinheit: unit of time.
• bis ins Unendliche: to infinity.

After you have learned sufficient German you can appreciate fine science puns such as this one I got from Science Jokes:

Q: What is Schroedinger's parakeet called?

A: Ein Teilchensittich.

Here's the explanation:

Sittich is German for parrot.
Wellensittich is German for parakeet.
Welle is German for wave.
Teilchen is German for particle.
So by Wave-Particle duality you have Teilchensittich.

Ich lachte laut!