In scientific English writing, we can use royal "we" to refer to the author(s). Can we do that in German language also.
For example:
We used method X.
Wir nutzen Methode X.
I feel that does not read well in German language, based on my limited German skills.
I cannot judge about scientific writing in general, but in mathematical publications written in German it is quite common to use "wir". Okay, in international journals you will nowadays find practically no articles written in German because authors want to be understood by a wide audience, and at German universities also doctoral dissertations and postdoctoral theses are very often written in English. But Bachelor and Master theses are still frequently written in German.
Quotation from here:
Das "Wir" in wissenschaftlichen Texten. In der Regel werden mathematische Texte in der dritten Person verfasst. Eine Ausnahme bildet das in wissenschaftlichen Texten verbreitete "Wir". Dabei handelt es sich weder um einen Pluralis Majestatis noch meinen mehrere AutorInnen sich selbst, sondern es werdend ie LeserInnen angesprochen. Sie sollen eingeladen werden, sich aktiv an der Argumentation zu beteiligen.
The relevant part is this: "Wir" is neither a Pluralis Majestatis nor do multiple authors speak as "we", but its purpose is to invite readers to join the argumentation.
That is, "wir" means author(s) plus reader(s) as a group thinking together about the arguments.
I am a scientist (a chemist, to be precise) but never in my scientific career have I come across a Royal We—not in English and not in German.
Most journal articles I read are full of we. But these articles also tend to have between two and ten authors. While it is assumed that one author did most of the work (usually the one listed first) the text is phrased as if all people were doing the work. To a certain extent that is justified, because the PhD student doing the lab work will give their supervisor frequent updates and in return frequently receive suggestions on what to do and how to do it. Thus, the we in these articles is the collective of authors addressing the reader(s). In German, wir is appropriate for the same reason.
In dissertations or other theses, it is slightly different as there is one principal author who compiled the text. In this case, I is the most common personal pronoun. We is sometimes but rarely used if a certain experiment was undoubtedly a group effort. This extends to the PhD student’s defence where most sentences are phrased as I-sentences (but e.g. publications are mentioned as we published X). The same is true in German: My dissertation mostly uses ich, rarely if at all wir.
Finally, in textbooks and the like it is typically a single author writing to their readers. Nonetheless, they tend to use we a lot. This, however, is again not a Royal We but rather an invitation to the reader to follow the chain of thoughts or the maths or mechanism or whatever together with the author. The same form is typically used in lectures where the lecturer expects the students to follow and expand the lecturer’s thoughts and expressions on the blackboard/slides. Again, in German this is wir for the same reason and not royal.
In languages that distinguish inclusive and exclusive we (the former including the listeners/readers, the latter excluding them), journal articles would thusly be phrased using exclusive we while lectures and textbooks would use inclusive we.
The above notwithstanding many scientific chemical texts are written in an unpersonal passive voice to keep the chemistry in focus rather than the authors. I feel that German may be using the passive voice slightly more than English to depersonalise science. Thus, especially in the experimental section it would become:
Methode X wurde verwendet.
My first idea is, that the number of scientific articles written by one person is still decreasing. So this we seems primarily matching the plural of authors, where the exact person is not considered relevant, and is not related to majestic plural.
While I have also seen einer von uns (Name) führte das Experiment durch, bei dem..., I understand that due to the clumsy structure this is seldom used.
Otherwise I see no difference between English and German here.
If we refers to a single person, this is definitely not common.
We used method X.
Wir nutzten Methode X.
I used method X.
Ich nutzte Methode X. ( not suitable for scientific texts )
Method X was used to ...
Methode X wurde genutzt, um ...
Note: using "wir" in scientific writing (unfortunately in german)
"pedagogical" we and "discursive" we is okay to use, but not the Pluralis Majestatis.
disclaimer: There is a controversy about this topic (not only in Germany) passive or active voicing or ego-form and we-form. I claim that most in Germany reject the roayle-form and the ego-form. Ideally, you should check this with guidelines from your university or similar.
Since, as others have mentioned, the number of scientific articles in German is quite limited nowadays, you can also have a look at lecture notes to get a feeling for scientific writing. Lecture notes for undergrad classes taught at German universities are often in German, so you will find a lot of those online.
As a concrete example, in these notes for Analysis I, the string wir appears 509 times, whereas ich appears 13 times, 12 of those in the context of a fictional conversation between two people.
So, at least as far as mathematical writing is concerned (and I don't think it is very different in other fields), the use of "wir" is absolutely common.
Your question (lacking the physical question mark) is answered by Yes!, and this in both the cases
This is already well-covered in this thread, IMHO, especially in the answers by Jan and by Paul Frost.
My single motivation for adding this is to propose a concrete example in scientific writing where the single author consistently uses "wir".
Have a look at/read of the 3 pages long introduction of
Bivariante K-Theorie für ... which is an older but (or and) seminal mathematical article, written in German.
