Ferdinand Karl Schweikart

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Ferdinand Karl Schweikart

Ferdinand Karl Schweikart (born February 28, 1780 in Erbach ; † August 17, 1857 in Königsberg i. Pr. ) Was a German lawyer , mathematician and university professor .

Life

Schweikart attended the city school of his birthplace until 1790. Then he studied at the high schools in Hanau and Bergheim im Waldeck'schen. From 1796 he studied law at the Philipps University of Marburg . In 1798 he moved to the University of Jena , where he was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD .

He then became a Countess Erbach'scher advocate and 1807/08 instructor of the younger princes of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen with the title of court counselor . In 1809 he became associate professor at the University of Giessen . In 1812 he followed a call to Kharkov as full professor and Imperial Russian Councilor . In 1816 he returned to Germany as full professor in Marburg. In 1819 he was rector of the University of Marburg.

In 1821 he was appointed full professor at the Albertus University in Königsberg , where he also received his doctorate in philosophy and, in 1827, while retaining his professorship, was given the position of a councilor in the Prussian judicial tribunal. Here he also participated in the organizational tasks of the university and was rector of the Albertina in the summer semesters of 1831 and 1833 .

He dealt with studies in the field of non-Euclidean geometry and in 1818/19 corresponded with Carl Friedrich Gauß via Christian Ludwig Gerling . In particular, he sketched a model of a non-Euclidean geometry, which he called astral geometry, in which the sum of the angles in the triangle is less than 180 degrees. Schweikart spoke out clearly for the existence of more general geometries than that of Euclid, in which he saw only a special case. His nephew Franz Taurinus was also encouraged to work in this area through him.

Schweikart's contributions were uncovered by Paul Stäckel and Friedrich Engel in 1895 ( The theory of parallel lines from Euclid to Gauss ).

Works

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from Gerling to Gauß of January 25, 1819 with a note from Schweikart of December 1818, extract in Carl Friedrich Gauß: Works. Volume 8 , pp. 179–181, complete and with a facsimile of Schweikart's note in Clemens Schaefer (ed.): Correspondence between Carl Friedrich Gauß and Christian Ludwig Gerling , Otto Elsner, Berlin 1927, pp. 189–194
  2. ^ Letter from Gauß to Gerling of March 16, 1819, excerpt from Carl Friedrich Gauß: Werke. Volume 8 , pp. 181–182, and in Clemens Schaefer (Ed.): Correspondence between Carl Friedrich Gauß and Christian Ludwig Gerling , Otto Elsner, Berlin 1927, pp. 194–196

literature

personal data
SURNAME Schweikart, Ferdinand Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH Erbach (Odenwald)
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1857
Place of death Koenigsberg i. Pr.