German Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen
Eminent European university, founded in 1737 in Göttingen, Germany.
It was one of the first and most influential secular universities. In the late 18th century it was the centre of the Göttinger Hain, a circle of poets who were forerunners of German Romanticism. In the late 19th century its Mathematical Institute, headed at various times by Carl Friedrich Gauss , Bernhard Riemann , and David Hilbert , attracted students from all over the world. In the 20th century its physics faculty included Max Born , Werner Heisenberg , and Max von Laue .