Philipp Felsch, born in 1972, works as a science historian at the ETH University in Zurich. For his PhD thesis Laboratory Landscapes, he went into the Alps with an expedition to examine at high altitudes one of the great passions of the fin de siècle: fatigue. He is currently writing a book about the Schlagintweit brothers, who, in the spirit of Humboldt but without his Midas touch, tragically failed because of their oversized ambitions.