Technische Hochschulen in der heutigen Zeit — eine kritische Besinnung

Abstract

The present position and prospective goals of Technical Universities (Institutes of Technology or Colleges of Science and Technology in the American and British nomenclature, respectively) are critically discussed on the basis of recent developments at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and in the context of the limits to growth of our modern society. The antagonism of breadth and depth is discussed in terms of the evolution of the human brain and in terms of Bohr’s complementarity hypothesis, and extended to encompass the relationship between teaching and research in science and technology.