Many architects, engineers, medical doctors, and scientists made their homes and careers here in Berlin. Not only is evidence plain to see in buildings, memorial plaques, and sculptures, but by the final resting places of the renowned throughout the capital city.
In Schöneberg’s Alter St. Matthäus cemetery, I say “hello” to Kirchhoff, Kronecker, and Rubens; as well as Mitscherlich and the Brothers Grimm.
Leopold & Fanni Kronecker. In my training, I learned about the Kronecker delta function whose utility became more apparent in learning about mathematical physics: e.g., “how to write the identity matrix or tensor in a couple of terms.”
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. I learned the Kirchhoff laws (or rules) of electrical circuits, and later, the Kirchhoff law of thermal radiation. He and Robert Bunsen created the spectroscope, and with the new spectroscopic examination of sunlight, discovered in 1861 the elements caesium and rubidium.
Heinrich & Marie Rubens. Thanks to Rubens’ measurements of infrared radiation, Max Planck was able to derive and write a new law of radiation, based on the discreteness (quantization) of energy. Ruben’s’ work extended the range to larger wavelengths (smaller frequencies) and helped set the new 20th-century “quantum mechanics” on solid experimental ground.
Eilhard Mitscherlich. I didn’t know about this until I searched his name. In 1819, the chemist studied various compounds with phosphorus and arsenic in the laboratory, and realized they crystallized similarly: thus began the study of crystallographic isomorphism.
Members of the Grimm family, including Brothers Grimm Jacob & Wilhelm. They collected fables and fairy tales of their time in the German language, many of which have been sanitized for popular consumption today.
The cemetery is free to enter, but opening times vary during the year; summer hours (May to August) are 8am to 8pm. The cemetery’s main entrance (shown here) is directly opposite the south entrance to S1 S-Bahn station Yorckstrasse.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 20 May 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
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