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Otto Warburg’s first approach to photosynthesis

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Abstract

In the field of photosynthesis research, Otto Warburg (1883–1970) is predominantly known for the role he played in the controversy that began in the late 1930s regarding the maximum quantum yield of photosynthesis, even though by that time he had already been working on the topic for more than a decade. One of Warburg’s first contributions on the subject, which dates from around 1920, is his proposal for a detailed model of photosynthesis, which he never completely abandoned, despite later overwhelming evidence in favor of alternatives. This paper presents a textual and graphical reconstruction of Warburg’s model and of his argument for its validity. Neither has received much attention in the history of science, even though the model was certainly one of the most plausible explanations of the period and therefore could not be so easily discredited.

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Notes

  1. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Warburg in 1931 “for his discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme”; see the information on the official website, http://nobelprize.org. For biographical information on Warburg, see, e.g., Krebs (1972, 1979), Bücher (1983), Höxtermann and Sucker (1989), Werner (1991), Henning (2000), and Höxtermann (2001). On the quantum controversy in particular, see also Govindjee (1999).

  2. Warburg, e.g., devoted almost twenty pages of his 1919 article to describing his new techniques in detail: the growing of the algae, his light source, his manometric methods, the apparatus, and specific vessels, and, finally, the use of rotating sectors to expose the algae to alternating light and dark conditions. Although this section is interesting in its own right, it is not immediately relevant to this paper, so I have chosen to skip over most of it.

  3. Assuming the participation of carbonic acid in the process rather than carbon dioxide was common practice at the time.

  4. For a detailed introduction to the representation of causal processes in graph form, see: Baumgartner and Grasshoff (2004; Chapter III).

  5. On von Baeyer, see also Florkin (1977), pp. 147–151. Contemporary surveys of the field are provided by Schroeder (1917) and Stiles (1925); for a comparison of Liebig and von Baeyer, see also Rabinowitch (1945), pp. 146–148.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Govindjee (Urbana, Illinois) for inviting me to write this paper and for suggestions during the various stages of this paper. I also thank the three referees for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper; Johannes Sander (Bern), who prepared the graphs; Margareta Simons (Bern), who greatly improved the English of this paper; and Gerd Grasshoff (Bern) for his generous support of the project.

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  1. History and Philosophy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Kärin Nickelsen

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  1. Kärin Nickelsen
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Correspondence to Kärin Nickelsen.

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Nickelsen, K. Otto Warburg’s first approach to photosynthesis. Photosynth Res 92, 109–120 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-007-9163-3

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