GOTTINGEN, UNIVERSITY OF

German in full Georg-august-universitt Zu Gttingen, one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Gttingen, Germany, in 1737 by George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. In the late 18th century it was the centre of the Gttinger Hain (q.v.), a circle of poets who were forerunners of German Romanticism. Its reputation suffered in 1837 when seven professors, the Gttinger Sieben ("Gttingen Seven"), were expelled for political protest, but by the late 19th century its Mathematical Institute, headed at various times by Carl Friedrich Gauss, P.G.L. Dirichlet, Bernhard Riemann, and David Hilbert, was attracting students from all over the world. In the 20th century its faculty of physics included the Nobel Prize winners Max Born, James Franck, Werner Heisenberg, and Max von Laue, who were responsible for some of the most important discoveries and developments in modern physics.