Yesterday, the Gerda Henkel Prize, worth 100,000 Euros, was bestowed on historian of science Prof. Lorraine Daston. In her speech at the awards ceremony, the long-standing Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin discussed her “dream for unified sciences”. As the native American explained, this dream usually comes to nothing, but on occasion has succeeded, albeit as the unity of scientists, not of science: In 2018, 54 nations unanimously concluded a new definition of measurements and weights, the International System of Units (SI). There was unanimity across all political divides. Lorraine Daston: “Iran voted in favour, alongside Israel, Hungary voted along with France, and China with the United States.” Originally, the Gerda Henkel Prize was meant to be awarded in the year 2020 but the pandemic has meant that Lorraine Daston was not able to take receipt of the prize until now.

The Gerda Henkel Prize rewards excellent and internationally recognized scholars who have conducted outstanding research and who are expected to continue to do so. The Chair of the Executive Board of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Dr. Michael Hanssler, referred in this context to the book Lorraine Daston recently published entitled “Rules”. In it, she analyses the many rules that structure our lives, why some rules function and others do not, and how they have evolved in the Western tradition.

In a panel discussion, Lorraine Daston and Berlin art historian Prof. Peter Geimer discussed the highly colourful history of scientific illustrations – from the artfully designed illustrations through to highly technical depictions of black holes: Although these images always played a decisive role, there were very different notions of what a scientific illustration achieves. The discussion made it clear why images in the natural sciences are still indispensable even in the age of Big Data.

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