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Culture, history and society

Culture, history and society

German hyperinflation, and what it has to do with a Nobel prize

01 Oct 2023
Otto Stern in the laboratory
Star player Otto Stern was a physical chemist by training but became interested in physics after being taken under the wing of Albert Einstein at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1912. Stern attended Einstein’s lectures and closely followed developments in quantum mechanics. However, he was not convinced that the theory was correct and devised a test, later known as the Stern–Gerlach experiment, to try to disprove it. However, the experiment showed that quantum mechanics was the real deal and Stern was forced to admit that Niels Bohr, one of its founding fathers, was correct. (Courtesy: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Segrè Collection)
Many of us are feeling the sting of inflation. But did you know that runaway prices could well have

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