Difference between revisions 1481964 and 1481969 on enwikiquote

{{Nointro}}
'''''[[w:Significance|Significance]]''''' (2012) ''by [[Lise Sonntag]]''.
 
* It occurred to him that for a generation which had grown up in the relative stasis of the Soviet era the speed of development must be unnerving. Where once a local bakery would have been a mainstay of the community, now people were faced with the ever-changing high street – shops and restaurants coming and going, adrift on the tides of supply and demand. Even Baumgarten had noticed a certain generic quality creeping into the selection of bars one could go to as investors settled on the lowest common denominator and landlords sought ever higher returns on their leases. (Chapter 4)

* After the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the ''DDR'', known in Germany as the ''Wende'' or 'The Change', the traditional ''Kneipen'' had struggled – those customers who still wanted to frequent the old-style bars had no money, and those with money wanted to go to the newer, more glamorous places that were appearing all over the city. Axel’s bar was now more or less an enclave. A last bastion of the good bits of a country that no longer existed – fellowship, community spirit, and solidarity in the face of difficulty. (Chapter 8)
:''Describing the social effects of German reunification''

* "Look, you have to understand how scientists think. Ethical ones, anyway. There are very, very few absolutes in science and none at all in statistics. Not if the tests are sound.” She came around from behind the lectern and sat next to Baumgarten in the front row. “A while ago there was an experiment going on in London,” she said. “They ran it for three months non-stop and took something like twenty-five million separate measurements. What were they trying to do? Establish the shape of a particular sub-atomic particle. They released their findings a little while ago. They announced that the particle was a sphere to within one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre. Do you know what the leader of the team said at the press conference?” Baumgarten started to smile. He could see that Bach was enjoying herself tremendously. “He said, and I quote: ''To the best of our knowledge, with the experimental precision we have, it appears to be round''." (Chapter 9)
:''From a discussion about the nature of scientific research''

* "At times it must have seemed as though he were condemned to being a kind of scholarly performing monkey for the aristocracy; obliged to produce ever more startling and interesting revelations for the entertainment of his masters and to their vicarious glory." (Chapter 16)
:''Referring to the great polymath G.W. Leibniz in his later years''