Ephraim Salomon Unger

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Ephraim Salomon Unger

Ephraim Salomon Unger (born March 9, 1789 in Coswig , † November 1, 1870 in Erfurt ) was an important mathematician and university professor . The Unger'sche Lehranstalt he founded in Erfurt was the forerunner of the Erfurt Realgymnasium , from which the Heinrich-Mann-Gymnasium Erfurt emerged .

Life

Childhood and studies

He grew up in Coswig on the Elbe in a family of Jewish faith. His father, David Salomon Unger, came from Preßburg and was the first Jew to be granted city citizenship in Erfurt in 1810 . From his father, he received his first lessons on the historical books of the Bible, the Psalms and the Proverbs in the original language. He attended the public school in Coswig and received additional lessons from its rector.

At 13, he went for further training to Berlin to that of Isaac Daniel Itzig founded and Lazarus Bendavid led Jewish Free School . Since his parents could not support him in Berlin, he financed his studies by giving private lessons in Hebrew , French and Latin . Studying some mathematical passages in the Talmud , namely in the Mischnah , aroused his special interest in mathematics. After the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon's troops in autumn 1806, he left the city in spring 1807 and moved to Erfurt, where his father had moved the previous year. There he passed the university entrance examination and was matriculated on August 29, 1807. He attended lectures in philosophy with Johann Christian Lossius , history with Jakob Dominikus , natural sciences with Johann Jakob Bernhardi , Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff , Christian Friedrich Bucholz and Joseph Hamilton as well as mathematics with AFC Reichard and Johann Blasius Siegling . Due to good references he received a scholarship from the ruling Duke of Bernburg , Alexius Friedrich Christian , in 1808 . He was particularly interested in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the mathematical works of Leonhard Euler . In applied mathematics, he learned about mechanics from Lagrange , optics from Robert Smith and astronomy from Johann Elert Bode . Later I also studied the writings of La Place and Gauss . In 1810 he received his doctorate at the philosophical faculty on the basis of a dissertation on the origin of trigonometric functions and was also a master's degree .

Teaching at the University of Erfurt

In the winter of 1810/11 he held his first mathematics lecture at the University of Erfurt and has been uninterrupted since then until it was canceled on November 12, 1816. He also read philosophy and, after Lossius's death, was entrusted with completing the lectures on logic he had begun . He also gave his mathematical lectures independently of the university, usually every winter until 1826. His audience was initially the officers of the French garrison, later the members of the "topographical bureau" . The officers of the Erfurt regiments were prepared to attend the war school at the instigation of Lieutenant General von Jagow . His training as a teacher began in 1811, at which time he was given the position of a teacher of mathematics at the educational establishment under the direction of the director Weingärtner in Erfurt. In this position, to which he owes in particular the development of his teaching method, he remained until the institution was closed in 1821.

Establishment of the Ungerschen Lehranstalt in Erfurt

In March 1820, together with his brother, the royal construction manager and later court agent David Unger, he opened a " private mathematics school " which soon had numerous students and was also popular with foreigners. In 1834 he converted this institute into a formal secondary school “in order to meet the long felt lack of a scientific educational institute for all those who do not want to or cannot attend a university. She should all. to become manufacturers, merchants, artists, or to devote themselves to construction, mining, forestry, tax, post office boxes or agriculture, enough to want to take up a technically practical profession, to provide the necessary scientific documentation. ” Even if the idea of Realschulen, ie the institutions that are suitable to provide a higher education based mainly on the so-called realities (such as history and geography), had already been expressed and implemented by August Hermann Francke , the introduction of the mathematical and natural science subject as didactic is Center Unger's merit. Among his best-known students was the future civil engineer and entrepreneur John August Roebling (1806–1869), the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City .

The original boom that the Unger'sche Anstalt had experienced soon came to an end as a result of the establishment of public secondary schools in the neighboring cities of Thuringia ( Nordhausen , Gotha , Saalfeld , Meiningen , Eisenach ), and since the school received no support from any side, it had to Due to financial difficulties, their director dissolves his secondary school after ten years of existence at Easter 1844. As a result, the city of Erfurt was forced to meet the needs once recognized by establishing a public secondary school . Teachers and students at the Unger private institution went to the provisionally established municipal institution, the goals of which were set higher than they had envisaged in the previous one. The original founder of the school had to forego the management of this public institution because of his Jewish denomination . At first he was employed by a fee contract as a mathematics teacher in the upper classes until his permanent appointment on September 6, 1848. On October 23 of the same year he received his appointment as senior teacher and on May 24, 1849 he was appointed professor .

Research and journalistic activities

In addition to the ever increasing practical activity, he published numerous works on arithmetic and the other branches of lower and higher mathematics. In addition, he drafted a plan for the “ Gotha Life and Fire Insurance”, as he advocated the principle of “reciprocity” prevailing in this institute. He also published a “ Handbook of State Lottery Loans ” (1841) and dealt with the establishment of death funds (“ Instruction on Funeral Fund Associations ” 1854) by prescribing the principles according to which those institutions, which are often threatened in their continued existence, could be appropriately redesigned. Finally he edited the biographies of Leibniz and Kant for the "Ehrentempel" .

Honors, retirement and death

On September 20, 1860 he celebrated the anniversary of his entry into the series of lecturers at the University of Erfurt. A year later he was honored with retirement. He died on November 1st, 1870. In honor of Unger's life's work, he was portrayed in an oil painting by Eduard von Hagen , which is located in the auditorium of the Erfurt secondary school.

Fonts

  • Complete manual of arithmetic. 2 volumes. Erfurt 1816. 2nd edition 1834.
  • The essence of arithmetic. Erfurt 1816.
  • Arithmetic conversations. Erfurt 1812. 2nd edition 1832.
  • Guide for teaching mental arithmetic as the basis for a practical arithmetic lesson in general. Erfurt 1842. 2nd edition 1851.
  • Treatises on the most important subjects of arithmetic, especially for merchants and accountants. Erfurt 1829.
  • New collection of treatises on the most important subjects of arithmetic. Erfurt 1882.
  • Algebra for business people. Erfurt 1828.
  • Handbook of mathematical analysis in 4 volumes. Erfurt 1824–1827.
  • The geometry of Euclid and its essence. 1833 ( online at archive.org ). 2nd edition with 550 woodcuts Erfurt 1852 ( online at archive.org )
  • Practical exercises for budding mathematicians. 2 volumes. Erfurt 1828/1829.
  • Exercises from pure and applied stereometry. Erfurt 1830.
  • Exercises in statics and mechanics of solid bodies for technicians. 3 volumes. Erfurt 1829–1830 ( online at archive.org ). 2nd edition 1851-1854.
  • Exercises in applied mathematics for technicians and especially for architects, artillerymen, engineers, forest and mining officials, etc. Berlin 1830 ( online at the Göttingen digitization center ).
  • Manual of plane and spherical trigonometry. 1821.
  • The beginnings of practical geometry according to the French of Lacroix. Edited by Bechstein.
  • Textbook of probability calculation after the French of Lacroix. Erfurt 1836.
  • About mathematics lessons at secondary schools. Erfurt 1836.
  • The essence of the geometric theorem. Erfurt 1837.
  • A brief outline of the history of numerology from Pythagoras to Diophantus. Erfurt 1843.
  • The meaning of the two books of Apollonius on touch for geometrical analysis. Erfurt 1855.

Awards

  • 1860: Honorary citizenship of the city of Erfurt
  • 1861: Red Eagle Order IV class

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Zange “8. March 1789 ".
personal data
SURNAME Unger, Ephraim Salomon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH Coswig
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1870
Place of death Erfurt