Wilhelm Klinkerfues

Wilhelm Klinkerfues.

Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues (born March 29, 1827 in Hofgeismar , † January 28, 1884 in Göttingen ) was a German astronomer and meteorologist . He discovered six comets, was an observer in Göttingen and later director of the observatory. He invented an automatic lantern lighter and the bifilar hygrometer, but these failed to gain acceptance. He published daily weather forecasts of varying degrees of reliability based on meteorological measurements.

Life

childhood

Successor building of Klinkerfues' birthplace (right).

Wilhelm Klinkerfues was born on March 29, 1827 in the small town of Hofgeismar near Kassel in the house of the restaurant "Zur Flötenlinde" at 3 Sälber Tor. He was the eldest son of Johann Reinhard Klinkerfues and Sabine Dedolph, a daughter of the Hofgeismar postmaster and mayor Johann Conrad Dedolph. Wilhelm's father was a low-paid regimental doctor in Hofgeismar and later in Spangenberg .

Klinkerfues' academic teacher, the astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christian Ludwig Gerling , professor at the University of Marburg, described the early career of Klinkerfues in a letter to his friend Carl Friedrich Gauß : His father “lost his wife, died in poverty, left one behind Bunch of underage children ”who were“ distributed among close and distant relatives ”. Wilhelm “came to an unmarried aunt in Hofgeismar, who had quite a fortune, but spent the last penny to make something out of him ... In my opinion, a very large part of his awkward nature should be written on the fact that he was after his mother Death and before moving to his aunt treated harshly, probably ill-treated. "

education

Klinkerfues attended the community school in Hofgeismar and from the age of 14 the grammar school in Kassel, where he lived with his uncle, the higher judge and member of the Hessian state parliament George Dedolph (1789-1843). He graduated high school with the Secunda and subsequently joined to the Higher Commercial School (Polytechnic) in Kassel. When his uncle died in 1843, he rented a room from the optician David Alexander Fiorino, where he came into contact with astronomical equipment for the first time. He made his own observations and borrowed specialist astronomical literature such as Lalandes “Traité d'astronomie” (Astronomical Handbook) and Gauss' “Theoria motus corporum coelestium” (theory of the movement of the heavenly bodies) from the Hessian State Library , which he received thanks to his high school education in the Could read original languages ​​French and Latin. In 1844 he passed the examination as a geometer (land surveyor).

Through the mediation of the Supreme Court Councilor Johann Weiffenbach, member of the General Directorate of Construction of the State Railways, he was employed as a surveyor in 1846 for the construction of the Main-Weser Railway in Marburg. When an unmarried uncle agreed to finance his studies at the University of Marburg, he gave up his job. From 1847 he studied under Christian Ludwig Gerling, who recognized his talent and promoted him, astronomy and mathematics. Gerling drew him to magnetic observations and astronomical observations and measurements (lunar eclipse, star coverings, Ceres, Neptune, comets), which were published in the " Astronomische Nachrichten " from 1850 onwards.

Goettingen

Klinkerfues as an astronomer.

Gerling recommended his promising student Klinkerfues to Carl Friedrich Gauß in Göttingen, who was looking for an assistant after the death of his longtime observer Benjamin Goldschmidt. Klinkerfues started working for Gauß at the observatory in May 1851. He was very satisfied with his performance and hired him as an assistant in September. Klinkerfues took part in the magnetic observations under Gauss and observed eclipses and star coverings. He observed minor planets and comets and calculated their elements and ephemeris . In 1853 he discovered his first comet, which was followed by two more in 1854. After Gauss's death, he discovered three more comets in 1857 and 1863.

After Gauss' death in 1855, Klinkerfues did his doctorate with the dissertation "About a new method to calculate the orbits of double stars". In the same year he was appointed observer , in 1859 alongside Wilhelm Weber as interim director of the observatory and in 1863 as associate professor. In 1866 he turned down an appointment as director of the Hamburg observatory and was then appointed one of the two directors of the observatory in 1868. Klinkerfues was assigned the department for practical astronomy and Ernst Schering the department for theoretical astronomy, geodesy and mathematical physics, to which Gauss's geomagnetic observatory belonged.

From 1858 to 1863, Klinkerfues made zone observations of 6,900 stars, but these were only published after his death by Wilhelm Schur , Klinkerfues' successor from 1886. In 1860, Klinkerfues and Carl Haase carried out an expedition to Valencia in Spain to observe the total solar eclipse. In 1871 he published his standard work “Theoretical Astronomy”, which “did not receive the attention it deserved because of some editorial weaknesses”.

In addition to astronomy, Klinkerfues was also interested in meteorology . He used the bifilar hygrometer he had invented, together with other measuring devices, to make weather forecasts based on the weather of the next day. His often incorrect weather forecasts, which he published in the press, earned him the nickname "Flunkerkies" (an anagram of his family name). In addition to the bifilar hygrometer, Klinkerfues invented other devices from the 1870s onwards, none of which had any economic success (see inventions ). In 1881, Klinkerfues published the previously unpublished drawings of Tobias Mayer's moon map .

The conflicts in the observatory, a huge mountain of debt and his loneliness fueled a desperation at Klinkerfues, which was slowly reaching a climax. Horst Michling, to whom we owe a concise life sketch of Klinkerfues, sympathetically described the state of his soul in the last years of his life:

“The last and worst disappointment that hit Klinkerfues, however, was the falling out with himself. Gradually he lost faith in himself and his destiny, and so he became a victim of alcohol, and this devil would not let go of him again. The unfortunate man fought furiously with him, but it was all in vain. Slowly he was despised by the others, and finally he had to despise himself. His energy, his enthusiasm for work won out; he saw how things were going downhill for him more and more, how he became a superfluous person who only served others as the target of ridicule and amusement. He had become a burden to himself. "

On January 28, 1884, Klinkerfues put an end to his life with a pistol shot. He was buried in the city cemetery in Göttingen with great sympathy. The grave slab of the original grave was moved to the cemetery entrance at the Jewish cemetery in Kasseler Landstrasse.

personality

Caricature: Wilhelm Klinkerfues as a weather prophet.

Klinkerfues once said to Gerling “that by virtue of his upbringing, etc. was inexperienced in matters of common life, stupid and shy of people ”. Gerling believed that the cause of his behavior was “that after his mother's death and before he moved to his aunt he seemed to have been treated harshly, probably mistreated” and “maybe he will keep them, like many children neglected in his youth Traces of a lifetime ”. Gerling said to Gauß: “Among the young people who walk around in my head at night when I can't sleep ... Klinkerfues is still one of my favorite, but one that worries me the most because I don't care about him Skill as expected from others to work your way through to a carefree situation. ”This fear should come true: Klinkerfues never succeeded in building an orderly bourgeois existence.

During the five years under Gauss he did not find a connection to the academic society, and Gauss, who lived alone, was not suited to take him under his wing. Klinkerfues remained a loner in the later years as well. He suffered from debts he had previously taken on to support his family. In view of his financial circumstances, he decided not to start a family of his own, so that he suffered from loneliness in his private life as well. Although he was gradually promoted, the appointment to full professor was denied him, as was the appropriate modernization of the observatory equipment. Since moving to Göttingen, he lived in the eastern wing of the observatory. After the management of the observatory had been split between him and Ernst Schering , he lived in the west wing. The shared management of the observatory and the division of the inventory and the rooms gave rise to constant conflicts and made Klinkerfues life angry.

From 1870 on, Klinkerfues made regular weather observations and evaluated them for weather forecasts, which he published in the daily press. His predictions were often wrong. This earned him the reputation of a purring but lovable weather prophet, not only in his closer home, but in all of Germany. In Göttingen he was considered a humorous original not only because of his weather forecasts, and a large number of anecdotes and ridiculous poems circulated about him. His inventions, which he made from 1870 on, were not ready for the market and did not bring the expected income. One of his students judged: "It was disappointed hopes that slowly but steadily led the unusually talented astronomers onto the descending path and finally into the arms of alcohol."

Inventions

• 

  Gas igniter.

• 

  Bifilar hygrometer.

• 

  Weather indicator.

From 1870 onwards, Klinkerfues worked as an inventor alongside his main job. He was guided by two main springs: the joy of inventing and the hope of restoring his ailing finances. He invented an automatic gas igniter (1871), the bifilar hygrometer (1875), weather forecasters and a "range finder for war purposes" (1877). None of these inventions reached the market, and the expected pecuniary successes did not materialize.

Gas igniter

At the beginning of the 1870s, Klinkerfues invented a "hand gas igniter" and a "galvanic-hydrostic street igniter" for the automatic, central lighting and extinguishing of gas lanterns. In 1872 he sold the patent to Austria, where the Göttingen mechanic and optician Wilhelm Lambrecht was to set up and manage production on site. As a result of the great stock market crash in 1873, however, the company lost its investors. In addition, the complicated gas igniters could not prevail due to technical defects and their limited usability. The multiple repairs to clinker feet did nothing to change that.

Bifilar hygrometer

In 1877, Klinkerfues patented the so-called bifilar hygrometer, a moisture meter with two human hairs stretched in parallel, for which Gauß's bifilar magnetometer had inspired him. He described the theoretical basics of the hygrometer in the brochure "Theory of the bifilar hygrometer with the same holy percent scale".

He was able to win over Wilhelm Lambrecht, with whom he had already worked on the development of the gas igniter, to produce the bifilar hygrometer. He developed the device, which was unsuitable for laypeople, to the point of series production, although apart from the name “Klinkerfues Patent Hygrometer”, not much was left of the original design. Klinkerfues then got into a bitter argument with Lambrecht. In 1880 he published a pamphlet against Lambrecht, which Lambrecht countered in 1881 with the justification "A Nimbus and his Werth or Klinkerfues and his Weather Compass: Answer to Continued Challenges". The economic success of this invention was also lacking for Klinkerfues, while Lambrecht led his company to prosperity in the years to come.

Comet discoveries

comet	Old name	date	JPL	Astronomical News Volume | Year | column
C / 1853 L1 (clinker feet)	1853 III	June 11, 1853	[1]	36	1853	375
C / 1854 L1 (clinker feet)	1854 III	June 6, 1854	[2]	38	1854	327
C / 1854 R1 (clinker feet)	1854 IV	September 12, 1854	[3]	39	1854	163
C / 1857 M1 (clinker feet)	1587 III	June 23, 1857	[4]	46	1857	219
C / 1857 Q1 (clinker feet)	1857 BC	August 22, 1857	[5]	47	1858	27
C / 1863 G1 (clinker feet)	1863 II	April 14, 1863	[6]	59	1863	273

Memberships and honors

• 1856: Assessor at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .
• 1865: Guelph Order .
• 1874: Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .
• 1882: Member of the Royal Astronomical Society in London.
• 1934: Commemorative plaque at the Göttingen observatory on the 50th anniversary of death.
• 1934: Renaming of Krummen Strasse in Göttingen to Klinkerfuesstrasse.
• Memorial plaque at Haus Sälber Tor 3 in Hofgeismar. The previous building with the restaurant “Zur Flötenlinde” was the birthplace of Klinkerfues.

Publications

Works

Moon map by Tobias Mayer.

In addition to the works listed here, Klinkerfues wrote many articles for specialist journals. From 1850 he published one or more articles in the Astronomical News almost annually . Between 1865 and 1873 he made 16 contributions for the "News from the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen".

• Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Using a new method to calculate the orbits of the double stars. Dissertation, University of Göttingen, 1855, pdf .
• Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Theoretical Astronomy: by Dr. W. Klinkerfues, Professor, Director of the Royal Observatory in Göttingen. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1871, pdf .
• Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Theory of the bifilar hygrometer with the same holy percentage scale: by W. Klinkerfues, Dr., Professor and Director of the Royal Observatory in Göttingen. Göttingen: Peppmüller, 1875.
• Wilhelm Klinkerfues; Wilhelm Lambrecht: Brief description and instructions for the use of the Klinkerfues'schen patent hygrometer for practical meteorology and friends of the natural sciences: designed and fabricated by Wilh. Lambrecht. Göttingen: Hofer, 1877.
• Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Principles of spectral analysis and their application in astronomy. Berlin: Bichteler, 1879.
• Wilhelm Klinkerfues: For my friends! Defense against a charge made to me by my previous manufacturer W. Lambrecht of a theft of his intellectual property in weather matters. Göttingen, 1880. Reprinted in: #Lambrecht 1881 , pages 2–4.
• Johann Heinrich Mädler: The wonder of the universe or popular astronomy - together with an atlas, containing astronomical tables, illustrations and star maps. Seventh edition. New edition. Revised and enlarged by Professor Dr. W. Klinkerfues. Director of the Göttingen observatory. Strasbourg: Schultz, 1882, pdf .
• Tobias Mayer; Wilhelm Klinkerfues (editor): Tobias Mayer's larger map of the moon and detailed drawings; published for the first time. Göttingen: Huth, 1881, pdf .
• Wilhelm Schur (editor); Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Stern catalog, containing 6900 star locations for 1860.0 according to the zone observations made by Professor Klinkerfues in the years 1858 to 1863, with the assistance of the gentlemen named in the introduction. Derived from Dr. Wilhelm Schur. Göttingen, 1891.

Translations

• Charles Auguste Albert Briot: Experiments on the mathematical theory of light. Translated and with an additional addition by Wilhelm Klinkerfues. Leipzig: Quandt & Handel, 1867, pdf .
• William Huggins: Results of Spectral Analysis Applied to Celestial Bodies. German with additions by W. Klinkerfues. Leipzig: Quandt & Handel, 1869, pdf .

literature

Life

• Siegmund Günther:  Klinkerfues, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 231-233. Digitization , transcription .
• Paul Adolf Kirchvogel: Wilhelm Klinkerfues, astronomer. In: Ingeborg Schnack (editor): Life pictures from Kurhessen and Waldeck 1830–1930, volume 4. Marburg an der Lahn: Elwert, 1950, pages 186–191.
• Horst Michling: In the shadow of the titan - the tragic life of the astronomer Klinkerfues. In: Göttinger Monatsblätter, 1975, March, pages 4-5, April, pages 4-5, May, pages 6-7, June, pages 6-7.
• Otto Volk:  Klinkerfues, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 100 ( digitized version ). Transcription .
• Johann Christian Poggendorff : Biographical-literary concise dictionary for the history of the exact sciences: containing evidence of living conditions and achievements of mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, chemists, mineralogists, geologists, geographers etc. of all peoples and the like. Times. 1st department, A – L. Leipzig: Barth, 1898, pages 726–727.
• RC: Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 45, 1885, Pages 203-208, pdf .
• Gerhard Sattler: Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues, astronomer. In: Yearbook / District Committee of the District of Kassel, 1980, pages 53–56.
• Ernst Schering : Death notice. Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 108, 1884, Columns 65-68, pdf .
• Wilhelm Schur: Contributions to the history of astronomy in Hanover. In: # Göttingen 1901 , pages 89–152, Klinkerfues: pages 143–148.

Others

• Alex: Sent to the newspaper. In: Göttinger Monatsblätter, 1979, pages 101-103.
• Otto Behrendsen: The mechanical workshops of the city of Göttingen. History and its present establishment: memorandum ed. On the occasion of the World Exhibition of the United Mechanics of Göttingen that took place in Paris in 1900. Melle in Hanover: Haag, 1901, pages 26-28, pdf .
• Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal , 1881, Volume 242, Pages 121, 413-415, pdf , Plate 12 [7] , Plate 33 [8] .
• Theo Gerardy (editor): Christian Ludwig Gerling to Carl Friedrich Gauß. Sixty previously unpublished letters. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, pages 112-120.
• Letter from Christian Ludwig Gerling to Carl Friedrich Gauß , February 15, 1852, Gauß letter database .
• Rainer Holland; Gerhard Stöhr: History of the hygrometer: a journey through time through the centuries. Riedlingen: Stöhr, 2011, section 4.6.0, table 8.
• Festschrift to celebrate the hundred and fifty years of existence of the Royal Society of Science in Göttingen. Contributions to the scholarly history of Göttingen. Berlin: Weidmann, 1901.
• Zeitschrift für Instrumentenkunde , Volume 1, 1881, Pages 308–309, 310, pdf .
• Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , page 133.
• Wilhelm Lambrecht: A nimbus and its value or clinker feet and its weather compass: the answer to continued challenges. Göttingen: Spielmeyer, 1881.
• Arno Langkavel: Looking for traces in Europe. Monuments, plaques and graves of known and unknown astronomers. Frankfurt am Main: Deutsch, 2006, page 105, Figures 252–254.
• Günther Meinhardt : Göttingen originals. Göttingen: Wurm, 1964, pages 18, 21, 23-27, 79-80, 100-102, 142-143
• Walter Nissen: Göttingen memorial plaques: a biographical guide. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962, pages 92-93.
• Clemens Schaefer (editor): Correspondence between Carl Friedrich Gauß and Christian Ludwig Gerling. Berlin: Elsner, 1927, pages 769-809.
• Klinkerfues' Apparatus for Igniting Gas and Other Lights. In: Scientific American, June 17, 1871, p. 393, pdf .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Klinkerfues  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Inventions by Wilhelm Klinkerfues  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Klinkerfues in the catalog of the German National Library .
• List of publications by Klinkerfues in the Astrophysics Data System .
• Klinkerfues in the correspondence between Carl Friedrich Gauß and Christian Ludwig Gerling from 1850 in the Gauß letter database .
• Klinkerfues' inventions in Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal .
• Klinkerfues in Kladderadatsch .

Footnotes

1. ↑ The year of death 1844 given in #NDB for Sabine Dedolph is wrong, since all sources speak of the early death of the parents.
2. ↑ #Gerling 1852 , #NDB .
3. ^ Johann or Friedrich Klinkerfues from Eschwege.
4. ↑ #RC 1885 , #Gerling 1852 .
5. ↑ #Klinkerfues 1855 .
6. ↑ #Schur 1901 , page 144, 146–147, #RC 1885 , page 205.
7. ↑ #Schur 1891 .
8. ↑ #Klinkerfues 1871 , #Schur 1901 , page 147.
9. ↑ #Mayer 1881 .
10. ↑ # Michling 1975c , June, page 6.
11. ↑ #Langkavel 2006 , page 105, figure 254.
12. ^ Letter from Christian Ludwig Gerling to Carl Friedrich Gauß, May 12, 1851, Gauß letter database .
13. ↑ # Gerling 1852 .
14. ↑ # Gerling 1852 .
15. ^ Letter from Christian Ludwig Gerling to Carl Friedrich Gauß, June 30, 1854, Gauß letter database .
16. ↑ # Michling 1975c .
17. ↑ #Schur 1901 , pp. 146–147.
18. ↑ In the satirical magazine " Kladderadatsch " from 1872 to 1883 there are a number of allusions to Klinkerfues' weather forecasting art. - See: Klinkerfues in Kladderadatsch .
19. ↑ #Meinhardt 1964 , #Alex 1979 .
20. ↑ # Michling 1975c , June, page 6.
21. ↑ #Michling 1975c , May, page 6, #Lambrecht 1881 , pages 26, 33, 39, 45.
22. ↑ #Lambrecht 1881 , pages 5–13, Bean's pneumatic-electric gas ignition apparatus , Wilhelm Lambrecht , #Michling 1975c , May, page 6.
23. ↑ #Klinkerfues 1875 .
24. ↑ #Klinkerfues 1880 .
25. ↑ #Lambrecht 1881 .
26. ↑ Wilhelm Lambrecht , #Michling 1975c , May, page. 7
27. ^ Jet Propulsion Laboratory Small-Body Database Browser.
28. ↑ # Krahnke 2001 .
29. ↑ # Michling 1975c , March, page 5.
30. ^ Leopoldina, List of Members .
31. ↑ #NDB .
32. ↑ #Nissen 1962 .
33. ↑ #Langkavel 2006 , page 105, figure 252.
34. ↑ List of publications by Klinkerfues in the Astrophysics Data System , #Poggendorff 1898 .