One, two or three cultures? Humanities versus natural and social sciences in modern Germany

The central aim of this article is to clarify some central theoretical issues concerning the relationship between academic disciplines and society in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Germany. At first glance, the history of science confirms the view commonly held today, of natural sciences and technology eroding the position of forms of knowledge related to the study of cultural phenomena. By linking the crisis of the humanities to the progress of the natural sciences, however, there is a danger of misrepresenting both of them as monolithic epistemic cultures. In reality, the German term Geisteswissenschaften acquired its meaning in sharp competition with other categories. In this context, the Geisteswissenschaften were perceived as “useless” not only by contrast with the impressive technological applications of the “natural sciences”, but also with the bid for political relevance made by the “social sciences”. The “crisis of the humanities” can, therefore, not be overcome without reflecting on science as a whole and conceptualizing the function of the humanities in positive terms

Linear And Nonlinear Experiments In Pt -Symmetric Photonic Mesh Lattices

Photonic mesh lattices provide a versatile experimental platform for studying light propagation in a discrete environment. By using standard telecommunication equipment it is possible to influence the evolution of light by actively modulating its amplitude and phase. Fiber components thus offer a ready to use solution for creating a PT -symmetric optical network. Here, we analyze two classes of PT -symmetric networks: Those with local PT symmetry fulfilling the conditions of PT symmetry in each time step but not globally and those with global PT symmetry providing completely real eigenvalues. We investigate light propagation in these dissipative media in the linear and nonlinear regime and discuss nonlinear localization as well as the formation of soliton. Furthermore, Bloch oscillations are induced by an external phase modulation and are found to restore pseudo-Hermitian propagation