Emil Zsigmondy

Emil Zsigmondy in a portrait by Otto Barth

The brothers Otto (left) and Emil Zsigmondy around 1880

Zsigmondy's grave (left) in the Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans cemetery .

Emil Zsigmondy (born August 11, 1861 in Vienna , † August 6, 1885 in Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans , on the Meije south face ) was an Austrian doctor and mountaineer.

Life

Emil Zsigmondy made a name for himself as an excellent alpinist , first climber and developer of new routes. He was a friend and rope companion of Ludwig Purtscheller , the great leaderless Alpine pioneer. Emil Zsigmondy's outstanding achievements included the first longitudinal crossing of the summit ridge of the 3,983 m high Meije in the French Oisans massif, which he carried out on July 27, 1885 together with his brother Otto and Ludwig Purtscheller. Only a few days later, the same mountain was his undoing. He had a fatal accident on August 6, 1885 while attempting to climb the Meije south face. It was not until 1912 that the South Tyroleans Angelo Dibona and Luigi Rizzi conquered the wall .

Emil Zsigmondy's grave is located just a few kilometers from the crash site in the small cemetery of Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans in the Dauphiné Alps . The Zsigmondyspitze in the Zillertal Alps , the Brèche Zsigmondy, a deep recess in the summit ridge of the Meije , and the Zsigmondyhütte ( Rifugio Zsigmondy Comici ) in the Sexten Dolomites still remind of Zsigmondy .

Emil Zsigmondy's father Adolph Zsigmondy (1816–1880) was a dentist and was known for his Zsigmondy tooth scheme . Emil's older brother Otto , a dentist by profession, was also known as a mountaineer. His younger brother Richard was a chemist and received the Nobel Prize in 1925 . The youngest of the four brothers, Karl , was a mathematician. A number theory theorem is named after him.

Works

• The dangers of the Alps , 1885 (later editions continued by Wilhelm Paulcke and Helmut Dumler )
• In the high mountains , 1889 (posthumous)

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Zsigmondy, Emil . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 60th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1891, p. 279 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Emil Zsigmondy  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Emil Zsigmondy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Personal folder on Emil Zsigmondy (I) (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)
• Personal folder on Emil Zsigmondy (II) (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)