Caspar Isenkrahe

Mathias Caspar Hubert Isenkrahe (born May 12, 1844 in Müntz near Jülich; † August 12, 1921 in Trier ) was a German mathematician , physicist and Catholic natural philosopher .

Life

Portrait of Caspar Isenkrahe in his work Experimental-Theologie , published posthumously in 1922 .

Caspar Isenkrahe grew up without a biological father: the latter had died before he was born. Isenkrahe had attended the Progymnasium in Jülich in 1856, the Marcell High School in Cologne in 1857 and the Royal High School in Bonn from 1858–1863 . From 1863–1868 he studied at the University of Bonn, where he studied mathematics , physics , chemistry , mineralogy , botany , zoology , philosophy , Latin and German . On July 31, 1866, he received his PhD with an award-winning thesis on the anatomy of Helicina titanica - a species of snail - as Dr. phil. On February 26, 1869 he acquired the license to teach the chosen subjects as senior teacher ( pro facultate docendi ).

After a probationary year in 1869/1870 at the Bonn grammar school, he worked from 1870 to 1882, first at the Krefeld grammar school (today's Arndt grammar school) as a senior teacher, and from 1883 at the Realpro grammar school in Bonn. In the hope of being able to switch to a university career at Bonn University, he had submitted a habilitation thesis to Rudolf Lipschitz's mathematics faculty there in 1883 , which was entitled: “About the inversion of the complete elliptical integrals of the first and second genus for their real Muduln together with a more general investigation on the determination of the convergence limit of inverted power series ”. The faculty endorsed his plan, but it failed because of unrelated reasons in Berlin government offices. A later attempt to get a teaching position at the Technical University of Braunschweig also failed. The annoyance about these failures lasted until the end of his life. From 1893 to 1911 he worked as a high school professor at the Trier grammar school. He retired there on April 1, 1911. His residence remained in Trier.

Isenkrahe remained scientifically active in the fields of mathematics, physics and natural philosophy until his death in 1921 . He corresponded with well-known mathematicians and physicists, such as B. Hermann von Helmholtz , Heinrich Hertz , Felix Klein and Philipp Lenard .

Because of his extraordinary scientific creativity and versatility, the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn honored him with the renewal of his doctoral degree on the occasion of his golden jubilee on July 31, 1916 .

Caspar Isenkrahe died on August 12, 1921 after severe physical suffering. His estate is kept in Trier, partly in the city archive and partly in the diocese archive. Part I in the Trier City Archives (size: 0.5 running meters, running time : 1893–1941) contains correspondence, poems, sound creations, manuscripts and various collections on the cultural life in Trier at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Part II of the estate II in the Trier diocese archive (size: 2.50 running meters) contains personal documents, works, a biography and other correspondence.

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Isenkrahe had always had a special affinity for mathematics and had a number of publications in the field of pure mathematics. In particular, he has dealt with the theory of prime numbers . In the field of natural philosophy he was particularly fascinated by the question of infinity.

As a physicist, Isenkrahe dealt critically with the gravitation theories of his time. Building on Le Sage's theory of gravitation , he submitted his own proposal to explain the phenomenon of gravity, which was considered by well-known physicists such as Paul Drude , Walter Ritz and Arnold Sommerfeld .

As a pedagogue and devout Catholic , Isenkrahe felt obliged to prove God on the basis of natural philosophy . He also considered it necessary to scientifically get to the bottom of the paranormal phenomena that were passed off as 'miracles' by the Catholic Church. He later occupied himself increasingly with experimental theology .

At the ripe age of a philosopher he tried to broke the 20th century in the first quarter of debate about the theory of relativity , which was conducted in part with scientifically improper means with his treatise elementary analysis of the theory of relativity arbitrating intervene (1921). It seemed to him that “nothing is more suitable for the education of clarity and the initiation of scientific peace” “than the exact decomposition of the subject of dispute into its final components, the demonstration of the 'elements', the 'basic concepts' and 'principles' from which the construction of the Theory was put together ”. The purpose of the text was to “provide the introduction to the theory of relativity, to deal with a number of unavoidable preliminary questions and to discuss them in a purely objective manner without any bias, without regard to any persons or tendencies”.

Later his daughter Cäcilie Isenkrahe continued his research in the field of experimental theology. In 1927 she dealt with the Therese Neumann case in Konnersreuth. A poem published in 1929 under the name C. Isenkrahe probably goes back to Caspar Isenkrahe.

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1. ↑ Caspar Isenkrahe (1900) "About a solution to the problem of representing each prime number as a function of the preceding prime numbers by a closed expression", Mathematische Annalen 53 , 42 - 44, April 6, 1900.
2. ↑ Caspar Isenkrahe, “Isaac Newton and the opponents of his gravitation theory among modern natural philosophers”, Schulnachrichten des Gymnasium zu Crefeld , Crefeld 1978.
3. ↑ Caspar Isenkrahe, Das Räthsel von der Schwerkraft: Critique of previous solutions to the gravitational problem and attempt of a new one on a purely mechanical basis , Braunschweig 1879.
4. ↑ Caspar Isenkrahe, The return of gravity to absorption and the laws derived from it , Leipzig 1892.
5. ↑ Paul Drude (1897) "Ueber Fernewektiven" (presentation given for the 69th meeting of German natural scientists and doctors in Braunschweig, 1897; Physics section) Supplement to the Annals of Physics and Chemistry 62 . New Series, Issue 1, I - XLIX; Correction to page XXXIX: Annalen der Physik und Chemie 62 , Issue 12, 693, December 1897.
6. ^ Walter Ritz (1909) "Die Gravitation", Scientia , April 1, 1909.
7. ↑ Hugo Dingler (1925) “Balance of the Relativity Theory”, Süddeutsche Monatshefte 23 , No. 3, 210-218, December.
8. ↑ Joseph Hanauer: Konnersreuth as a test case - critical commentary on the life of Therese Neumann , Manz Verlag, Munich 1972, Chapter X .
9. ^ Josef Hanauer: The Konnersreuth swindle - a scandal without end? , Self-published 1989, Chapter VIII .
10. ↑ C. Isenkrahe, "The Eifel, Rhineland's pride and ornament", Eifel calendar , year 1929, p. 4.

Catalog raisonné

• Anatomy of Helicina titanica . In: Archive for Natural History XXXIII , 1st Issue, 50 - 72 (1867).
• School experiments on the harmonium to prove the most important tenets of acoustics . In: Journal for mathematical and scientific teaching IX , 178 - 184 (1878).
• Isaac Newton and the opponents of his theory of gravity among modern natural philosophers , scientific supplement to the annual report of the high school in Krefeld, Krefeld, Easter 1878 (39 pages).
• The mystery of gravity. Critique of previous solutions to the gravitational problem and attempt of a new one on a purely mechanical basis , Braunschweig 1879 (214 pp.)
• "Critical Contributions to the Gravitational Problem", Gaea XVI , 472 - 480, 544 - 550, 600 - 607, 647 - 656, 745 - 751 (1880).
• Pendulum experiments to explain the consonance, interference and absorption phenomena in acoustics and optics . In: Repertorium für Experimentalphysik XVI , 99-108 (1980); two addenda to this in the same volume: pp. 516–520 and 521–524.
• Euler's theory of the cause of gravitation . In: Journal for Mathematics and Physics 26 , Issue 1, 1 - 19 (1881) (Hist.-literar. Department).
• Idealism and realism, an epistemological study to justify the latter , Leipzig 1883.
• About Schmitz Dumont's work 'The unity of natural forces and the interpretation of their common formula' . In: Journal for Mathematics and Physics 28 , No. 2, 44 - 45 (1883) (Histor.-literar. Department).
• About the inversion of the complete elliptic integrals of the first kind for their real modules . In: Journal for Mathematics and Physics XXXI , 34 - 43 (1886).
• About the inversion of the complete elliptic integrals of the second genus defined by Legendre for their real modules . In: Journal for Mathematics and Physics XXXI , 178 - 191 (1886).
• Inversion of the complete elliptic integral of the second genus defined by Weierstrass . In: Journal for Mathematics and Physics XXXI , 241 - 246 (1886).
• On the theory of elliptical module functions , scientific supplement to the annual report of the Realprogymnasium in Bonn, Bonn 1886 (35 pages). ( Digitized version )
• On the application of iterated functions to represent the roots of algebraic and transcendent equations , Mathematische Annalen XXXI , 3rd issue, 309-317 (1888).
• About remote power and the third Ignorabimus set up by Paul du Bois-Reymond , Leipzig 1989 (64 pages).
• About reducing gravity to absorption and the laws derived from it . In: Treatises on the history of mathematics , VI. Issue, 161 - 204, Leipzig 1892.
• The procedure of function repetition, its geometrical illustration and algebraic application , scientific supplement to the annual report of the Kgl. Kaiser-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Trier, Trier 1897 (113 pages).
• About a solution to the problem of representing each prime number as a function of the preceding prime numbers using a closed expression , Mathematische Annalen 53 , Issue 1 - 2, 42 - 44, April 6, 1900.
• New theorems on the roots of algebraic equations . In: Archives of Mathematics and Physics , III. Series, Volume 3, 257-260 (1902).
• About the 32 solution results of the extended Malfattian problem . In: Scientific supplement to the annual report of the Kgl. Kaiser-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Trier , Trier, Easter 1906.
• About the terminology of the finite and the infinite . In: Natur und Revelation 54 , 129 - 156 (3rd issue, March 14th), 201 - 228 (4th issue, April 14th) (1908).
• About mechanical and optical devices that are used to prove the finiteness of the world . In: Nature and Revelation 55 , Volume IV, April 15, 193-211 (1909).
• About concepts and principles that are assumed to be known and self-evident in cosmological evidence. In: Scientific supplement to the annual report 1908-09 of the Royal Kaiser Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Trier. Trier 1909 (95 pages). This Isenkrahe's treatise was annotated by C. Dessoulavy, Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy XXII , 592-595 (1910).
• Neapolitan blood miracles , Regensburg / Mainz 1912.
• About quantities that cannot be counted completely . In: Monthly pages for Catholic religious instruction at higher educational establishments XII , January, 8-19 (1911).
• About the absorption of gravity . In: Die Naturwissenschaften , 1st year 1913, issue 50, December 12, 1237–1238.
• About the connection between the so-called ether collision theory and some special questions in cosmic physics . In: Die Naturwissenschaften 3 , No. 38, September 1915.
• On the foundation of a concise cosmological proof of God , Kempten / Munich 1915.
• The finite and the infinite. Clarification of both terms, discussion of many controversial issues and arguments in which they are used , Münster 1915.
• Energy, entropy, beginning and end of the world , Trier 1916.
• About the terms: limit, beginning and end . In: Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft 29 , 3rd issue, 213 - 327 (1916).
• On the problem of evidence. What does it mean, what does it do? , Munich 1917.
• Studies on the Finite and the Infinite: The Teaching of St. Thomas of the Infinite, its interpretation by Prof. Langenberg and its relationship to modern mathematics , Bonn 1920.
• For the elementary analysis of the theory of relativity. Introduction and preliminary stages , Braunschweig 1921.
• Weapons of apolegetics and their handling , Bonn 1922.
• Experimental theology. Treated from the point of view of a natural scientist , 2nd revised and expanded edition, Bonn 1922.

literature

• Wilhelm Bers: Professor Dr. phil. Caspar Isenkrahe from Müntz near Jülich - (1844–1921) . In: Rur-Blumen 23 , 1944, No. 16, pages 61-62.
• Wilhelm Alfred Miller: Isenkrahe Bibliography , 3rd supplemented edition, Berlin / Leipzig 1927.
• Adalbert Michael Bock: The theory of Isenkrahe in its application to the attraction and movement of the heavenly bodies (dissertation), Munich 1891.

Web links

• Literature by and about Caspar Isenkrahe in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Caspar Isenkrahe  in the German Digital Library
• Walter Ritz on gravitation.