ABSTRACT
The emergence of modern science is inseparable from the study of languages. Modern science evolved out of a humanistic European culture, but developed in a tension with it. Galileo's science emerged from a classical culture, Heinrich Kayser's late nineteenth-century experimental physics seems at first sight completely detached from classical culture. For Sommerfeld, the laws of nature were best presented to students of science by writing about them in terms of harmony and rhythm of the atoms. Heisenberg enjoyed an excellent humanistic education, studying thoroughly Greek and Latin, learning to play the piano at quite a high level, and doing rather little in the natural sciences. Heisenberg acknowledged that science could not give access to the meaning of life, but at least, he hoped, it may point to the 'hidden harmonies of the world'. Language changes over time and place, and so does science.
