Talk:Heinrich Lenz

Hey! I'm confused. I learned that Lenz was a russian physicist, and searching the WWW for info about him, that's what I get the most. Maybe we just drop the nationality? Or we should use the as a guide the passport he used? I do not know which one that was, though... Awolf002 02:46, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Checked it one more time (see Hutchinson (http://static.highbeam.com/t/thehutchinsondictionaryofscientificbiography/january011998/lenzheinrichfriedrichemil18041865/index.html)) and he most likely was a russian citizen. Awolf002 03:17, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi. All the references I could find also described him as Russian, but I wrote Estonian because of a correction by 61.9.208.172 over on Lenz's law. I have asked the user for clarification, but in the meantime I have no objection to changing the nationality to Russian. Wmahan 03:39, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Lenz was at Baltic German, and he was born in the Russian province of Livonia, to which Dorpat (now Tartu) then belonged. The term "Estonia" during his entire lifetime refers to the Russian province of that name, which is the province North of Livonia, with the capital of Riga (now Tallinn), appr. the northern half of today's Republic of Estonia, and with which apparently Lenz had nothing to do whatsoever. So, to say that he was an Estonian physicist would only make sense if he had been an Ethnic Estonian, which he wasn't; if anything, he was Livonian. This means that he was an ethnic German but a Russian citizen (and if you would have asked him what he was, which is a useful criterion in such messy matters, he would have said, with virtual certainty, either "a Balt" or "a German", depending where asked and by whom). For the list of all such scientists (you can check the list at the University of Tartu entry), we have used a standard description for such cases, which I would of course suggest for Lenz as well: "Heinrich ... Lenz ... was a Baltic German physicist most famous ... in 1833. / Lenz was born in Dorpat, Livonia (now Tartu, Estonia)." This would bring him in line not only with the general standard here, but also with all his expedition colleagues from a similar background. Clossius 07:10, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! Wmahan 07:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, this sounds okay to me, too. Although it is always difficult to ascertain what somebody would say 170 years ago. So, if we get flak for this I think we should fall back to the passport = Russian... Awolf002 14:44, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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The name of the town Lenz was born is Tartu now. It really doesn't matter what the name was then, you can put in brackets. The wikipedia isn't being written for people of the 19th century but for people today who know or at least should know the town under the name of Tartu. See http://www.tartu.ee. He was born in what is today Estonia, right??. I mean who has ever heard of "Livonia", it's not even a country. Sky 15:52, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. We are describing a person, here. He lived at a certain time and if you want to know what he did, you need to know in what environment he lived as well. My vote was to say he lived in Russia. He surely did not live in Estonia.

I do not believe, using your argument gets us consistent results. For example the Kings of Persia ruled a country that does not exist anymore and their capital is gone, too. Does this mean they ruled in Iran or Iraq? I do not think so... Awolf002 18:36, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)