Georg Friedrich Brander

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Georg Friedrich Brander

Georg Friedrich Brander (born November 28, 1713 in Regensburg , † April 1, 1783 in Augsburg ) was a precision mechanic known throughout Europe in the 18th century.

Life

Since his father Georg was a chemist and comes from Nuremberg; his mother Sibylla Katharina, widowed Pfaffreuter, came from a Regensburg goldsmith family. As a child, Brander was interested in mechanics at an early age , but at the request of his father was supposed to complete a commercial apprenticeship in Nuremberg. After the death of his father, he gave up this project and from 1731 studied mathematics and physics in Altdorf near Nuremberg . He was a student of Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr . In 1734 Brander came to Augsburg and created a craft here. Over time, his production program comprised the manufacture of mathematical and optical devices as well as physical, geodetic and mathematical tools . He led the instrument making art to a new bloom in the city on the Lech .

In 1737 Brander manufactured the first reflector telescope in Germany. His products were of such excellent quality that they rivaled those made in England. He became known for supplying European courts and academies with pleasing and artistic precision scientific devices. A measuring table , the tilting rule of which was a telescope with a glass micrometer and a particularly fine graticule , followed u. a. a so-called disc instrument from which the theodolite later developed.

He called a telescope built from 1775 that was linked to a star map "star finder". This enabled educated laypeople to track down celestial bodies. The instrument maker made barometers and thermometers for meteorological observations . A camera obscura is also worth mentioning. Brander also wrote writings on mechanics and also tried his hand as a mathematician.

Towards the end of his creative period, he built a coincidence rangefinder in 1778 , which consisted of a cross tube with two mirrors. The two images had to be brought into congruence and the distance to the targeted object could be determined using the mirror position.

The Augsburg native helped found the Electoral Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1759. Over the years, his craft business produced around 150 instruments for the physical and mathematical cabinet of this facility. The Deutsches Museum in Munich now houses an extensive collection of his instruments .

His customers also included mathematicians Johann Heinrich Lambert and Alessandro Volta , who expressly praised the master with “famoso” .

The old imperial city of Augsburg commemorates one of its historically most important craftsmen, Branderstrasse .

Around 1760 Caspar Höschel (1744–1820) joined Brander's service as a mechanic. After Höschel married Brander's daughter Barbara Euphrosina in 1774 , he became a partner in the flourishing business the following year. After Brander's death, Höschel continued to run the workshop alone and was able to maintain the reputation of the precision mechanics workshop. When Höschel died in 1820, his son took over the management and the company that Brander had built soon became meaningless.

Works

  • Description of two compound microscopes , Augsburg, by Eberhard Kletts sel. Wittwe, 1769
  • Georg Friedrich Brander, message from the universal thermometer , Augspurg o. J.
  • Brander, Georg Friedrich, The new geometric universal measuring table according to its composition and after its use briefly u. clearly described , Augsburg 1772 ( full text in the google book search)
  • Brief description of a small air pump or Cabinet Antlia , Augsburg, by Eberhard Kletts sel. Wittib, 1774
  • Georg Friedrich Brander's short description of the newly modified camera obscura with several additions , Augsburg, by Eberhard Kletts sel. Wittib, 1775
  • Georg Friedrich Brander / Christoph C. Hoeschel, Clear instructions for using the electrophore , Regensburg 1777
  • Georg Friedrich Brander, description of a magnetic declinatorii and inclinatorii: along with instructions on how to use these instruments in order to find out and determine the deviation and inclination of the magnetic forces in all places; together with the attached description of a dioptric sun quadrant for precise determination of the meridian line , Augsburg, Klett 1779
  • Georg Friedrich Branders, member of the Churbayrische Akademie der Wissenschaften and mechanic in Augsburg, description of a newly invented range finder from a station for engineers and artillerymen, who received the award from the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences in 1778 , Augsburg, from Eberhard Klett's blessed Wittwe and Franck, 1781
  • Arithmetica binaria sive dyadica that is the art with only two numbers in all cases that occur reliably and easily , digitalized

literature

Web links

To instruments:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ There is a certain degree of uncertainty about his life data, because Brander is said to have died at the age of 74; some sources also speak of November 18 as the date of birth.
  2. ^ Ernst Zinner: Brander, Georg Friedrich. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 2nd Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 1955, accessed on September 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Directory of both the small works published by Mr. Georg Friederich Brander himself, as well as those that have been written by scholars about some of his instruments and are available from Eberhard Klett's Blessed Wittwe and Frank in Augsburg. . Klett & Frank, Augsburg 1781.
  4. ^ Fritz Deumlich: Surveying Instruments . 1st edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-007765-5 , p. 15 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ A. Brachner: Georg Friedrich Brander , in: Deutsches Museum. Guide to the Collections , ed. from the Deutsches Museum. CH Beck, Munich, 2nd edition 1987, ISBN 3-406-32092-9 , pp. 142f.
  6. ↑ Oliver Hochadel: A Shock to the Public: Itinerant Lecturers and Instrument Makers as Practitioners of Electricity in the German Enlightenment (1740-1800) (PDF; 83 kB), University of Pavia
personal data
SURNAME Brander, Georg Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German precision mechanic and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1713
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1783
Place of death augsburg