Kurd Lasswitz (; 20 April 1848 – 17 October 1910) was a German author, scientist, and philosopher. He has been called "the father of German

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

". He sometimes used the pseudonym ''Velatus''.

Biography

Lasswitz studied mathematics and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

University of Breslau A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

and the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

, and earned his doctorate in 1873. He spent most of his career as a teacher at the Ernestine Gymnasium in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

(1876–1908).

Works

His first published science fiction story was ("To the Zero Point of Existence", 1871), depicting life in 2371, but he earned his reputation with his 1897 novel , which describes an encounter between humans and a

Martian Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celes ...

civilization that is older and more advanced. The book has the Martian race running out of water, eating synthetic foods, travelling by rolling roads, and utilising space stations. His spaceships use

anti-gravity Anti-gravity (also known as non-gravitational field) is the phenomenon of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to either the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or to ba ...

, but travel realistic orbital trajectories, and use occasional mid-course corrections in travelling between Mars and the Earth; the book depicted the technically correct transit between the orbits of two planets, something poorly understood by other early science fiction writers. It influenced

Walter Hohmann Walter Hohmann (; ; 18 March 1880 – 11 March 1945) was a German engineer who made an important contribution to the understanding of orbital dynamics. In a book published in 1925, Hohmann demonstrated a fuel-efficient path to move a spacecraft ...

and . The book was not translated into English until 1971 (as ''Two Planets''), and the translation is incomplete. was his most successful novel. A story from Lasswitz's served as the basis for "

The Library of Babel "The Library of Babel" () is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set. T ...

", a short story by

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

.Borges, Jorge Luis, and Eliot Weinberger. "The Total Library" in ''Selected Non-Fictions''. New York: Penguin Books, 1999, pp.215–216. His last book was ("Star Dew: the Plant of Neptune's Moon", 1909). He is also known for his 1896 biography of

Gustav Fechner Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he inspi ...

. For his writing (totalling around 420 works including non-fiction), Lasswitz has been called "the first utopistic-scientific writer in Germany" or even "a German

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

". A

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

was named in his honour, as was the

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

46514 Lasswitz. There also is the , an award for German-speaking as well as foreign authors of science fiction since 1981.

References

External links

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lasswitz, Kurd 1848 births 1910 deaths Politicians from Wrocław People from the Province of Silesia Writers from the Kingdom of Prussia Scientists from the Kingdom of Prussia University of Breslau alumni German science fiction writers German male writers German schoolteachers

Biography

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links