Georg Adolf Erman

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Georg Adolf Erman

Georg Adolf Erman , also Georgius Adolphus , (born May 12, 1806 in Berlin ( Kingdom of Prussia ), † July 12, 1877 there ) was a German physicist and geoscientist .

Life

Origin and family

The Erman family was a Huguenot family and came from Mulhouse in Alsace . The family name was originally "Ermendinger", which was changed to "Erman" by the great-great-grandfather Georg Adolf Ermans when he moved to Geneva. Georg Adolf Erman was born as the son of the Berlin physicist Paul Erman (1765-1851) and his wife Caroline, née Hitzig (1784-1848). In 1834 Georg Adolf Erman married the eldest daughter of his teacher Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel , Marie Bessel. The marriage had 10 children. Among his sons were the librarian Wilhelm Erman (1850–1932), the Egyptologist Adolf Erman (1854–1937) and the lawyer Heinrich Erman (1857–1940).

Trip around the earth

From April 1828 to October 1830 Erman undertook a research trip financed and equipped by his father, the main aim of which was to carry out as many measurements as possible of the earth's magnetic declination, inclination and intensity. Erman's measurements formed, if not the only, a large and important part of the data on which Carl Friedrich Gauß based his potential theory. Erman did not limit his observations to the geomagnetic project. On his journey, which took him around the world and covered around 60,000 km, he also made localizations and trigonometric and barometric height measurements; he collected meteorological data, made geognostic and mineralogical observations and described botanical and zoological phenomena. Last but not least, he described the ethnographic conditions that he encountered, and thus contributed "to illuminating the living conditions of the Siberian indigenous peoples."

After hearing about the planned magnetometric expedition of the Norwegian astronomer Christopher Hansteen in 1827 , who wanted to prove his theory of two magnetic axes and four poles with measurements in Siberia, he contacted Hansteen and agreed that his son would take part in the expedition . Erman had left Berlin in April and met Hansteen and the three other members of the expedition in St. Petersburg in June 1828 and traveled with them to Tobolsk . While the Norwegians were waiting for better snow conditions for departure, Erman took a month-long trip on Whether along km into the distant about 1500, at the Arctic Circle lies Salekhard . In Irkutsk he met Hansteen again and traveled with him to Kjachta , on the then border to China. While Hansteen traveled back to St. Petersburg , Erman chose an eastern route following the course of the Lena to Yakutsk . From there Erman traveled through previously relatively undeveloped and unexplored areas to Okhotsk , from there crossed to Kamchatka and traveled and mapped the peninsula. In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky he embarked on October 14, 1829 on the Russian corvette Krotkoi under the command of Captain Ludwig von Hagemeister (1780-1834) and returned to St. Petersburg after stays in Alaska, San Francisco, Tahiti and Rio de Janeiro and from there back to Berlin. He also regularly carried out geomagnetic measurements at sea.

He processed the results of his expedition in the five-volume work Reise um die Welt through North Asia and the Two Oceans, which was converted into a historical report (3 vols., Berlin 1833-42), which made up the actual travel description on over 1750 pages, and into one physical department (2 vols. together with atlas, Berlin 1835–41), in which the scientific results are presented, is divided.

Erman studied Gauss 's theory of geomagnetism intensively and published papers on the calculation of the Gaussian constant in publications of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in the 1840s . Together with the high school teacher Heinrich Jacob Reinhold Petersen (1815-after 1866) from Kiel, Erman took up the topic again in the 1870s and, building on earlier calculations, published his contribution to the calculation of the 24 coefficients of Gaussian potential theory in 1874 as the "crowning conclusion" : The Basics of Gaussian theory and the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism in 1829 . This work, with which the calculation of the constants on the basis of geomagnetic phenomena of the year 1829 and taking into account the secular variations from all available observations was completed and the publication of which the Imperial Admiralty was also involved, is taken as evidence that Erman "to belonged to the very few scientists who could understand mathematics in Gauss' ... potential theory ... "

academic career

After Georg Adolf Erman graduated from the French grammar school, Collège Français Berlin , at Easter in 1823 , he studied natural sciences at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Berlin and defended his dissertation there in 1826 on "Volume changes in the body when melting". He then went to Bessel in Königsberg as a volunteer assistant . From April 1828 to October 1830 he traveled through Siberia and around the world for geomagnetic research purposes.

After his return home he taught mathematics and physics at the French grammar school in Berlin from 1832 to 1846. Privatdozent since 1832, he became in 1834 as the successor to the late mathematician Jabbo Oltmanns (1783-1833) associate professor of physics at the University of Berlin. However, he was not appointed to a full professorship, as he was a “representative of decidedly democratic principles, in particular universal suffrage” in Prussia through his political commitment during the March Revolution in 1848, through his leading role in the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtische Casino, where the left-wing liberal casino was also Politician Franz Leo Benedikt Waldeck gave speeches, and through "his passionate temperament" and his "indomitable character" had created powerful enemies.

For these reasons, he was denied admission to the Prussian Academy of Sciences and admission as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Erman's son Adolf blames his hostility to Heinrich Wilhelm Dove , who was an influential member of the academy, for the failed election to the Prussian Academy . The unsuccessful efforts to gain admission to the Russian Academy were caused by the opposition of influential Baltic German scholars, whom Erman had not only snubbed with inaccuracies and serious errors in his description of the Russian Baltic provinces, but above all with his remarks about them, which were characterized by a naive astonishment German as the colloquial language of the educated classes and at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu ). As a minority, they viewed any hint of Russification as a threat to their privileges. So one threw Erman z. B. suggest that in his translation of the travel report of the Lütkeschen Eismeer-Expedition (1821-1824) the name of the Baltic German expedition leader, Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke , was transcribed from Russian as Litke .

Erman received awards from England for the research he carried out on his trip around the world: in 1842 he became a corresponding member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science . Towards the end of his life, in 1873, the Royal Society (London) elected him its foreign member.

Erman later lost a large part of his fortune through a financial stake in the Pleiskehammer ironworks in Neumark in the 1860s.

Awards and honors

Works

  • Travel around the world through North Asia and the two oceans . Historical Department, 3 vol. Berlin 1833–1848, Scientific Department, 2 vol. Berlin 1835–1841 ( digitized ).
  • Editor: Archives for Scientific Customer of Russia . 25 vols. Berlin 1841–1867 ( digitized ).
  • The basics of Gaussian theory and the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism in 1829 . Berlin 1874.

literature

  • Paul Erman: Letters to Christopher Hansteen. Universitetet i Oslo, Universitetsbiblioteket: Hansteens brevsamling.
  • Alexander von Bunge , Friedrich Parrot , Andreas von Löwis : XXXVI. Country and ethnology. Journey around the earth ... In: Dorpater yearbooks for literature, statistics and art, especially Russia. Second volume. Riga and Dorpat 1834, pp. 317–337.
  • Carl Friedrich Gauß: General theory of geomagnetism. In: Results from the observations of the Magnetic Association in 1838. Leipzig 1839.
  • Royal Geographical Society of London: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 14th., London 1844.
  • Robert Springer: Berlin's streets, pubs and clubs in 1848. Berlin 1850.
  • Eugen Lommel :  Erman, Adolphe . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 486.
  • Ludwig Darmstaedter (Hrsg.): Ludwig Darmstaedter's manual for the history of natural sciences and technology. Second revised and enlarged edition. In chronological representation. Berlin 1908.
  • Wilhelm Erman: Paul Erman. A scholarly life in Berlin 1764-1851. Berlin 1927. (Booklet 53 of the writings of the Association for the History of Berlin.)
  • Adolf Erman: My becoming and my work. Leipzig 1929, pp. 31-38.
  • Christa Kouschil: The “Archive for Scientific Customers of Russia” 1841–1867, as a source for German scholars' image of Russia. In: Erhard Hexelschneider (Ed.): Russia & Europe. Historical and cultural aspects of a problem of the century. Jena Forum for Education and Science, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3929994445 , pp. 101–120.
  • Peter Littke: Who was A. Erman? 2007.
  • Erki Tammiksaar: Adolph Erman - An important and at the same time controversial natural scientist of Siberia. In: Erich Kasten (Ed.): Travel to the edge of the Russian Empire: The scientific development of the North Pacific coastal areas in the 18th and 19th centuries. Fürstenberg / Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien, 2013, pp. 173–206.
  • Karin Reich , Elena Roussanova: Georg Adolph Erman - an important correspondent for Gauss in the field of geomagnetism. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft , No. 53, Göttingen 2016, p. 19.
  • Norbert Schmitz: Georg Adolph Erman (1806-1877). Geomagnetic research. Trip around the earth. Scientific career. Hannover 2020. (TROLL. Tromsøer Studien zur Kulturwissenschaft. Edited by Michael Schmidt. Volume 15.) ISBN 978-3-86525-741-3

Web links

Wikisource: Georg Adolf Erman  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adolf was the first name he preferred. His publications are often called "A. Erman". You can also find “Adolph” and “Adolphe” as spellings. However, there is a risk of confusion with his son, the Egyptologist Adolf Erman .
  2. ↑ Relationships with the Hitzig, Bessel and Mendelssohn families
  3. ↑ Cf. Gauß, Leipzig 1839, pp. 35ff.
  4. ↑ Norbert Schmitz, Hannover 2020, p. 12.
  5. ^ Paul Erman to Hansteen, July 24, 1827, August 29, 1827.
  6. ↑ Empire, Roussanowa, Göttingen 2016, p. 25
  7. ↑ Empire, Roussanova, Göttingen 2016, p 11
  8. ^ Wilhelm Erman, Berlin 1927, p. 104.
  9. ↑ Ludwig Darmstaedter's handbook on the history of natural sciences and technology. Berlin 1908, p. 364.
  10. ^ Wilhelm Erman, Berlin 1927, p. 192.
  11. ^ Wilhelm Erman, Berlin 1927, p. 233.
  12. ↑ cf. Robert Springer, Berlin 1850, p. 78f.
  13. ↑ Adolf Erman: My becoming and my work. 1929, p. 35.
  14. ^ See Wilhelm Erman, Berlin 1927, pp. 219, 234.
  15. ↑ Cf. Norbert Schmitz, Hannover 2020, pp. 180ff., 201ff.
  16. ↑ Norbert Schmitz, Hannover 2020, pp. 208ff.
  17. ↑ Adolf Erman: My becoming and my work. 1929, p. 34.
  18. ^ Bunge, Parrot, Löwis: Riga and Dorpat 1834, pp. 317–337.
  19. ↑ Erik Tamikssar: Adolph Erman. 2013, pp. 187-189.
  20. ↑ See Karin Reich, Elena Roussanova, Göttingen 2016, p. 19.
  21. ^ Members of the Royal Society
  22. ^ Home district of Crossen / Oder: Pleiskehammer .
  23. ↑ Adolf Erman: My becoming and my work. 1929, p. 37.
  24. ↑ Adelbert de Chamisso: Arcticae, quae supersunt. In: Linnaea. Vol. 6 (1831), p. 537 full text in the Google book search
  25. ↑ Handbook on the Royal Prussian Court and State for the year 1836. P. 78.
  26. ^ Royal Geographical Society of London, London 1844, p. VI.
personal data
SURNAME Erman, Georg Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1877
Place of death Berlin