Felix Auerbach

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Felix Auerbach during his time at the Jena Theoretical-Physics Institute (source: Professorengalerie der Phys.-Astro. Fac. Of the University of Jena)

Felix Auerbach (born November 12, 1856 in Breslau , † February 26, 1933 in Jena ) was a German physicist.

Life

Auerbach's father, Leopold Auerbach , was a respected doctor and professor of medicine at the University of Breslau . His mother was Arabella Auerbach, b. Hess. From her he had received the talent and love for music that accompanied him all his life. Felix was the oldest child of six siblings. The chemist Friedrich Auerbach (1870–1925) and the Breslau pianist Max Auerbach (1872–1965) were his younger brothers.

Felix Auerbach received his humanistic education from 1865 to 1873 at the Maria Magdalenen grammar school in his hometown. After graduating from high school, at the age of 16 he began studying at the universities in Breslau, in Heidelberg with Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and in Berlin with Hermann Helmholtz . He did his doctorate with him in 1875. The title of his dissertation, The Nature of Vowel Sounds , also showed interest in the physical foundations of music and acoustics . From 1879 Felix Auerbach was assistant to Oskar Emil Meyer at the physics institute of the University of Breslau and from 1880 private lecturer . During his studies in Heidelberg , Auerbach became a member of the Rupertia Association .

In 1883 he married Anna Silbergleit (1860–1933), who later headed the Central German Women's Association and fought for women's suffrage . The marriage remained childless.

In 1889 Auerbach took over the professorship for theoretical physics established by Ernst Abbe at the University of Jena . As a Jew , he was initially denied a full professorship , but it was not established until 1923. He retired in 1927.

From 1906 to around 1914, he and his sister-in-law Käthe Auerbach (1871-1940) took on the upbringing of his brother Max Auerbach's children, namely Klaus, Günther and finally Johannes and Cornelia Auerbach (who later became Hanning Schröder's wife ).

House Auerbach , Schaefferstraße in Jena
Felix Auerbach in a portrait by Edvard Munch (detail, 1906)

Auerbach was already a patron of the Jena art scene around 1914 and numerous artists frequented his company, such as Erich Kuithan , Clara Harnack ( Otto Harnack's widow ), Reinhard Sorge , Eberhard Grisebach and Botho Graef , the sponsor of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner . In Jena he also supported the progressive efforts of the Jena Art Association and the Weimar Bauhaus . In 1925 Walter Gropius built a house for Felix Auerbach and his wife based on the "large-scale construction kit" principle. The Auerbach house , as it is still called today, was restored in 1995. Until 1933 it was a cultural center for scientists and artists. In addition to Gropius, the Auerbachs' frequent guests and friends included Max Bruch , Ida Dehmel and Richard Dehmel , Edvard Munch , Henry van de Velde and Julius Meier-Graefe . Munch had already painted a portrait of Felix Auerbach in 1906. Auerbach founded the first lawn tennis club in Jena in 1893. "The development of lawn tennis in Jena can be traced back to him in particular".

With Adolf Hitler, the anti-Semitic climate in Germany became unbearable for Felix and Anna Auerbach. After the National Socialists came to power, they both committed suicide. In his farewell letter it was said that he had now "left earthly existence full of serenity" last night "after almost 50 years of mutually happy coexistence".

Services

Felix Auerbach was a versatile scientist who never lost sight of the practical. At the University of Jena, he was particularly committed to the subject of experimental physics . He dealt with magnetism , which was also the subject of his habilitation thesis . And he wrote a treatise on hydrodynamics for the Venetian Academy of Sciences . He researched the hardness of solid materials and in 1890 developed a device for measuring absolute hardness.

Horst Bredekamp referred in Die ZEIT to the fact that the art historian Ulrich Müller wrote that the Jena physics professor Felix Auerbach “ knew how to explain Einstein's theory of relativity in two writings from 1906 and 1921 and, in particular, impressed a number of artists because he had been with him for decades a physics of the arts. ” Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky , whom Gropius had brought to the Weimar Bauhaus as a teacher, were two of these artists.

Together with the physicist Wilhelm Hort (1878–1938), Felix Auerbach began at the age of seventy to publish the manual of physical and technical mechanics (1927–1931, 7 volumes). In addition to his physical work, Auerbach was particularly interested in mathematics . One of his classic writings here is The Fear of Mathematics and Overcoming It (1925). In 1909 he published the paperback for mathematicians and physicists at Teubner (from 1911 with Rudolf Rothe ), which was last published in 1913.

In his work The Law of Population Concentration, Auerbach describes a law that can be traced back to the wide distribution of city sizes and is known today as Zipf's law .

Publications (selection)

  • Investigations into the nature of the vocal sound . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . Supplementary volume tape 8 , 1877, p. 177-225 ( digitized version ).
  • Determination of the resonance tones of the oral cavity by percussion . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . tape 3 , 1878, p. 152–157 ( digitized version ).
  • The pitch of a tuning fork in an incompressible fluid . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . tape 3 , 1878, p. 157-160 ( digitized version ).
  • On Grassmann's vowel theory . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . tape 4 , 1878, p. 508-515 ( digitized version ).
  • The world mistress and her shadow. A lecture about energy and entropy. G. Fischer, Jena 1902.
  • Akustik (= Handbook of Physics 2), Leipzig o. J. (2nd edition 1909).
  • Ectropism and the physical theory of life. Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1910.
  • The basics of music . JA Barth, Leipzig 1911.
  • The law of population concentration. In: Petermanns Geogr. Mitteilungen. 59, pp. 73–76, 1913 (digitized version)
  • The graphic representation. Teubner, Leipzig 1914. ( The graphic representation  - Internet Archive )
  • Physics at war. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1915.
  • Telex and telephony. Overcoming space and time through electricity. Ullstein, Berlin 1916.
  • Ernst Abbe - his life, his work, his personality. Academ. Publishing company, Leipzig 1918.
  • Dictionary of Physics. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and Leipzig 1920.
  • Space and time, matter and energy, an introduction to the theory of relativity , Leipzig: Dürr'sche Buchhandlung 1921
  • Development history of modern physics: At the same time an overview of its facts, laws and theories. Julius Springer, Berlin 1923.
  • The Zeisswerk and the Carl Zeiss Foundation in Jena. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1925, 5th edition.
  • The methods of theoretical physics. Akad. Verlagsges., Leipzig 1925.
  • Living math. A generally understandable introduction to the way of seeing and thinking in lower and higher mathematics. Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau 1929.

literature

  • Ruth Kisch-Arndt : A Portrait of Felix Auerbach by Munch. In: The Burlington Magazine. Vol. 106, No. 732 (March 1964), pp. 131-133
  • Ulrich Müller: Area, Space, Time: Felix Auerbach and Paul Klee. In: Imagery of Knowledge. Art history yearbook for visual criticism. Vol. 1, 2003, 2; Pp. 44-53
  • Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem :  Auerbach, Felix. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 433 ( digitized version ).
  • DBE, German Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 1
  • Annual report 1873 of the St. Maria-Magdalena grammar school in Breslau
  • Cornelia Schröder-Auerbach : A youth in Jena. In John / Wahl (ed.): Between convention and avant-garde. Weimar 1995
  • Friedrich Bolay: Johannes Ilmari Auerbach, Joannès Ilmari, John I. Allenby 1899–1950. An autobiography in letters. A & V Woywod, Bad Soden am Taunus 2004, ISBN 3-923447-08-6
  • Meike Werner: Modernism in the Province: Cultural Experiments in the Fin de Siècle Jena. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-594-X
  • Maike Bruhns : Art in Crisis. 2nd edition, pages 42–45. Dölling and Galitz, Munich a. Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-933374-95-2 .
  • Martin S. Fischer, Barbara Happe: The Auerbach House by Walter Gropius with Adolf Meyer. Wasmuth, 2004, ISBN 3-8030-0635-X

Web links

Commons : Felix Auerbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ^ Robert Freiherr von Fichard, German Lawn Tennis Yearbook. Third and fourth year 1896 and 1897, Berlin: Verlag von "Spiel und Sport" 1896, p. 176.
  2. ↑ from: Ulrich Zwiener: Between yesterday and tomorrow. Jena encounters ; Jena 1998
  3. ↑ Ulrich Müller, Space, Movement and Time in the Work of Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004.
personal data
SURNAME Auerbach, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1933
Place of death Jena