BIOLOGIST

August Weismann

1834 - 1914

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August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (German: [ˈvaɪsman]; 17 January 1834 – 5 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at Freiburg. His main contribution involved germ plasm theory, at one time also known as Weismannism, according to which inheritance (in a multicellular animal) only takes place by means of the germ cells—the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. August Weismann is the 87th most popular biologist (down from 67th in 2019), the 605th most popular biography from Germany (up from 626th in 2019) and the 9th most popular German Biologist.

August Weismann is most famous for his theory of the germ plasm, which states that the inheritance of traits is determined by the transmission of information from generation to generation through the germ cells (eggs and sperm).

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Among BIOLOGISTS

Among biologists, August Weismann ranks 87 out of 1,097. Before him are René Lesson, Werner Arber, Jules A. Hoffmann, Matthias Jakob Schleiden, Hans Spemann, and Herman Boerhaave. After him are Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Katherine Oppenheimer, Clair Cameron Patterson, Alfred Hershey, Ernst Mayr, and Charles Lucien Bonaparte.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1834, August Weismann ranks 13. Before him are Duchess Helene in Bavaria, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, William Morris, Samuel Pierpont Langley, Léon Walras, and Carl Bloch. After him are Amilcare Ponchielli, Jan Neruda, Vasily Perov, Charles Spurgeon, Aleksis Kivi, and Johann Philipp Reis. Among people deceased in 1914, August Weismann ranks 14. Before him are Carol I of Romania, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, George Westinghouse, Georg Trakl, and Jean Jaurès. After him are August Macke, Ismail Gaspirali, Eduard Suess, Louis Couturat, Maximilian von Spee, and Alexander Samsonov.

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In Germany

Among people born in Germany, August Weismann ranks 605 out of 7,253. Before him are Hans Spemann (1869), Theodor W. Hänsch (1941), Ludwig Tieck (1773), Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1628), Hermann Kolbe (1818), and Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743). After him are Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse (1837), Gustav Heinemann (1899), Samuel von Pufendorf (1632), Robert Ritter von Greim (1892), Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia (1892), and Katherine Oppenheimer (1910).

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Among BIOLOGISTS In Germany

Among biologists born in Germany, August Weismann ranks 9. Before him are Albrecht Kossel (1853), Peter Simon Pallas (1741), Harald zur Hausen (1936), Theodor Schwann (1810), Matthias Jakob Schleiden (1804), and Hans Spemann (1869). After him are Katherine Oppenheimer (1910), Ernst Mayr (1904), Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1942), Erwin Neher (1944), Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795), and Georges J. F. Köhler (1946).

German born Biologists

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