August Heinrich Christian Gelpke

August Heinrich Christian Gelpke (born January 21, 1769 in Braunschweig ; † April 20, 1842 ibid) was a German astronomer , school councilor and professor in Braunschweig and an honorary member of the Grand Ducal Mineralogical Society in Jena .

After school service in the orphanage school and later the grammar school, he held popular science lectures at the Carolinum , most recently with the title of school council. His subjects included: grinding glass, elementary math, and the newly emerged astronomy.

Its importance lies in the comet theory, in which he assumed that changes on the earth's surface stem from impacts from space. His treatise on it has been digitized several times. He can be seen as a representative of catastrophe theory .

Fonts

• Textbook of a popular celestial science for friends, admirers and especially for teachers of this science at high schools and higher educational institutions. [With 4 copper plates.] Leipzig 1815.
• About the terrible effects of the crash of a comet on the earth and about the appearance of this kind five thousand years ago. Leipzig 1835. ( digitized version )

literature

• Karl Christian Bruhns :  Gelpke, August Heinrich Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1878, p. 551 f.
• Klaus John: August Heinrich Christian Gelpke, an astronomer at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. Dissertation, Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2004. ( digitized version )

Web links

• Literature by and about August Heinrich Christian Gelpke in the catalog of the German National Library
• About the terrible effects ... in Project Gutenberg ( currently not usually available for users from Germany )
• Works by August Heinrich Christian Gelpke in the Gutenberg-DE project