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| A great-grandson of the German composers ] and his wife ], he was living in England at the outset of the ]. Being a foreign national, he blamelessly suffered more than two years in an ] camp in Canada<ref></ref> before decompressing back in England, where he took up a post teaching science at the ] in ].<ref>Intellectual Autobiography by ]. In Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji, By Ricardo Salles. ], 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-19-926130-7}}.</ref> While there, he laid the foundation for ] (for which he was honoured by our late queen) using boxes of numbered cards, containing questions, answers, tutorial material, or descriptions of experiments, on a variety of different subjects.<ref name="JPM">. Accessed 16 June 2009.</ref> He became a Research Fellow in ] at ], and presented science programmes for the ] from 1960 to 1962, before being recruited to teach technology in ] in 1963 by headmaster ].<ref>Brian Scragg, Sevenoaks School, A History (1993)</ref> In 1984, he retired from teaching and moved to ], where he was well-regarded. | A great-grandson of the German composers ] and his wife ], he was living in England at the outset of the ]. Being a foreign national, he blamelessly suffered more than two years in an ] camp in Canada<ref></ref> before decompressing back in England, where he took up a post teaching science at the ] in ].<ref>Intellectual Autobiography by ]. In Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji, By Ricardo Salles. ], 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-19-926130-7}}.</ref> While there, he laid the foundation for ] (for which he was honoured by our late queen) using boxes of numbered cards, containing questions, answers, tutorial material, or descriptions of experiments, on a variety of different subjects.<ref name="JPM">. Accessed 16 June 2009.</ref> He became a Research Fellow in ] at ], and presented science programmes for the ] from 1960 to 1962, before being recruited to teach technology in ] in 1963 by headmaster ].<ref>Brian Scragg, Sevenoaks School, A History (1993)</ref> In 1984, he retired from teaching and moved to ], where he was well-regarded. | ||
| Some of his students were ],<ref></ref> ], John Paul Morrison,<ref>. Accessed 7 July 2016.</ref> |
Some of his students were ],<ref></ref> ], John Paul Morrison,<ref>. Accessed 7 July 2016.</ref> | ||
| ==Early life and family== | |||
| Gerd and his twin sister Gerda were born in Wiesbaden, Germany, to Elizabeth Ruher and Walter Georg Sommerhoff (a wealthy banker who was born in New York to Elise Schumann, the second child of Robert & Clara Schumann). The Sommerhoff family resided in Haarlem, Netherlands, until the loss of their fortune in the ] and the ensuing possibly suicidal death of their father.<ref>Gerd Sommerhoff, Obituary, The Times, Friday 17 May 2002</ref> The two younger children moved to Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 1931 with their mother Elizabeth Sommerhoff (when she remarried, to Major Bernard Francis Anne Vernon-Harcourt) while their elder brother, Walter Hans Sommerhoff, emigrated to ], in Chile. | |||
| Gerd then studied engineering at Zurich Polytechnic (now ]) and philosophy, politics and economics at ]. Being (an anti-Nazi) German in England, he then found himself needlessly corralled onto a ship westwards over the Atlantic Ocean, where a loud horn that sounded in the lower decks deafened him permanently in one ear to higher pitch notes. From 1939 to 1942, he was ] in Canada where, bunked up with physicist ], he patriotically tried to warn British authorities (tragically ignorant to all but reports of Fascism) about his roommate's then-overt Communist sympathies, prior to his recruitment into ] then the ] and Fuch's betrayal of its nuclear secrets to ]'s ], which enabled all the dangers of the ]. | |||
| Gerda, being female, was exempted from internment as an enemy alien, and became a model (for Vogue magazine), a sculptor and a photographer, then emigrated (as eldest sibling Walter had done) to ], in Chile, where she married Juan Eduardo Subercaseaux and had five children. | Gerda, being female, was exempted from internment as an enemy alien, and became a model (for Vogue magazine), a sculptor and a photographer, then emigrated (as eldest sibling Walter had done) to ], in Chile, where she married Juan Eduardo Subercaseaux and had five children. | ||
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| *1990: ''Life, Brain and Consciousness'' | *1990: ''Life, Brain and Consciousness'' | ||
| *1994: ''An Account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences. Integrative Physiology and Behavioral Science''. With Karl F. MacDorman.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1007/BF02691012 | volume=29 | issue=2 | title=An account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences | journal=Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science | pages=151–181| year=1994 | last1=Sommerhoff | first1=Gerd | last2=MacDorman | first2=Karl | pmid=7947330 | s2cid=17193883 }}</ref> | *1994: ''An Account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences. Integrative Physiology and Behavioral Science''. With Karl F. MacDorman.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1007/BF02691012 | volume=29 | issue=2 | title=An account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences | journal=Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science | pages=151–181| year=1994 | last1=Sommerhoff | first1=Gerd | last2=MacDorman | first2=Karl | pmid=7947330 | s2cid=17193883 }}</ref> | ||
| *1996: ''In and Out of Consciousness. The intimate history of a search for certainties.''<ref>His autobiography will soon be uploaded here.</ref> | |||
| *2001: ''Understanding Consciousness – its function and brain processes.''<ref></ref> | *2001: ''Understanding Consciousness – its function and brain processes.''<ref></ref> | ||
| ==Retirement and eventual death== | |||
| In early October 1996, Gerd visited the University ] at Kelsey Kerridge sports hall in ], where he smilingly declined recruitment to a water-pistolling game of ], which would that Michaelmas Term entertain 128 students. Instead he invited its fun-loving Umpire to dine with him in the University Centre, beginning a lifelong age-gap friendship of mutual psychic benefit. Oftentimes afterwards, they would luncheon together at the nearby Garden Moat House hotel, overlooking the ]. In the summer of 2001, he gladly let the younger man and his girlfriend drive him to the east coast, for a perfect day out on ] blue flag beach. He lived alone, but cherished his friends. In early 2002, on the morning of his 87th birthday, he reached up into a wall cupboard and tragically stumbled backwards against the corner of a table, injuring his lower back. (In hindsight, all such sharp corners should be rounded off with a sanding disk, in the ].) The young couple arrived from Shropshire thinking to celebrate his birthday with him, but hearing his lament, they quickly called for a doctor, who opined that ] was a danger. Of three different levels of ] offered to him, Gerd chose the medium, since the strongest would shorten his life. Knowing sepsis resulting from his injury would likely accelerate his death, he declined to consider ], saying he preferred to live whatever might remain of his lifespan only around those generations he already knew, despite his philosophy of ] lamenting his consciousness would be bound for ]. After a month of homecare, he had to enter a hospital run by ], into which he had long paid healthcare premiums, with little to no prior claim upon their service. They quickly transferred him to the excellent local NHS hospital, ], where over several weeks spanning Easter, he was able to talk fondly with all his friends, until death sadly came in late April. His well-attended funeral was held at Cambridge Crematorium on 7th May, and his ashes were later buried by many devotees among the roots of a sapling planted at ], in honour of its former teacher. | |||
| ==Presumption of Innocence== | |||
| The presumption of innocence is a principle, enshrined in English Law, essential to make us civilised. | |||
| Our British war hero ] was punished brutally for homosexuality and driven to suicide, despite later being voted the ] of the Twentieth Century. Like him, Gerd came to feel in young adulthood that he was gay, but lived during decades when such healthy sexuality was unjustly criminalised, and therefore had to be concealed, limiting his chance to find a life-partner. Nevertheless, with close friends of all sexuality, he opened up this part of himself, while never imposing it. Though gentlemanly, he enjoyed humour and sharing anecdotes, so there had been scope for misinterpretation of his comedy by puritans and people lacking self-confidence. | |||
| The only vocal critic of Gerd has an eponymous website which discusses his own autism. He similarly describes the unnamed claimant (possibly himself in anonymity) as living with schizoid personality & Asperger's Syndrome, and nebulously refers to six critics who have never come forward. His typo-ridden website lambasts many people. We might speculate he fell out with Gerd, and has sought to amplify his obloquy eightfold, with nobody bothering to verify any other critic exists. | |||
| ==References== | ==References== | ||
| {{Reflist}} | {{Reflist}} | ||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
| * | |||
| {{Authority control}} | {{Authority control}} | ||
Revision as of 06:58, 30 December 2022
Gerd Walter Christian Sommerhoff OBE (for services to education) was born on 13th February 1915, in Wiesbaden, Germany and died on 28th April 2002, in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. He was a pioneer & lifelong advancer of theoretical neuroscience and a noted humanist.
A great-grandson of the German composers Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, he was living in England at the outset of the Second World War. Being a foreign national, he blamelessly suffered more than two years in an internment camp in Canada before decompressing back in England, where he took up a post teaching science at the Dragon School in Oxford. While there, he laid the foundation for Educational Technology (for which he was honoured by our late queen) using boxes of numbered cards, containing questions, answers, tutorial material, or descriptions of experiments, on a variety of different subjects. He became a Research Fellow in Systems Theory at University College London, and presented science programmes for the BBC from 1960 to 1962, before being recruited to teach technology in Sevenoaks School in 1963 by headmaster Kim Taylor. In 1984, he retired from teaching and moved to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was well-regarded.
Some of his students were Tim Hunt, Alan Macfarlane, John Paul Morrison,
Gerda, being female, was exempted from internment as an enemy alien, and became a model (for Vogue magazine), a sculptor and a photographer, then emigrated (as eldest sibling Walter had done) to Santiago, in Chile, where she married Juan Eduardo Subercaseaux and had five children.
Works
- 1950: Analytical Biology
- 1974: Logic of the Living Brain
- 1990: Life, Brain and Consciousness
- 1994: An Account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences. Integrative Physiology and Behavioral Science. With Karl F. MacDorman.
- 2001: Understanding Consciousness – its function and brain processes.
References
- Richard Brown Baker family papers
- Intellectual Autobiography by Richard Sorabji. In Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji, By Ricardo Salles. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-926130-7.
- J. Paul Morrison's autobiography. Accessed 16 June 2009.
- Brian Scragg, Sevenoaks School, A History (1993)
- Autobiography of Nobel Prizewinner Tim Hunt
- J. Paul Morrison's autobiography. Accessed 7 July 2016.
- Sommerhoff, Gerd; MacDorman, Karl (1994). "An account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences". Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. 29 (2): 151–181. doi:10.1007/BF02691012. PMID 7947330. S2CID 17193883.
- Sage Publishers