Georg Hartmann (mathematician)

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Astrolabe by Georg Hartmann

Georg Hartmann (born February 9, 1489 in Eggolsheim near Forchheim , † April 8, 1564 in Nuremberg ) was a German mathematician and instrument manufacturer who was best known as the pioneer of Nuremberg sundial makers.

Life

Hartmann studied theology and mathematics in Cologne from 1506 , continued his studies in Italy, where he was probably from 1510 to 1518, and then became a priest. In 1518 he went to the Sebaldus Church in Nuremberg as vicar . In 1522 he received the benefice of St. Walburga in Nuremberg. It is not known exactly whether he still worked as a priest after 1525, as he was successful as an instrument maker. He died in April 1564 in Nuremberg and was buried in the Johannisfriedhof near the grave of Albrecht Dürer , where his epitaph has been preserved to this day. There is a portrait engraving of him.

He was known in Nuremberg as an instrument maker and he was a respected mathematician who corresponded with many scholars. The instruments he manufactured included quadrants, compasses, sundials (among other things, he designed the sundial on the dial of St. Sebaldus Church), earth and celestial globes, astrolabes, gun attachments and caliber rods. Caliber rods were invented by him and are used to estimate the weight of cannonballs. Hartmann had his own print shop in his house. He also had templates printed for sundials, which could then be glued onto wood. A number of his instruments have been preserved. He probably also made glasses (several with his name are known) and medical-astrological discs (called Directory), about which he also wrote a treatise. Such discs are preserved in Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) and in the libraries in Munich and Wolfenbüttel. In addition to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, his instruments are located in the British Museum, Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, Museum Boerhaave Leiden, Adlerplanetarium in Chicago and the Museum of the History of Science in Florence. A sundial crucifix in the Germanic National Museum is considered to be the first known cardboard model building sheet (even before the table supplements from Hans Döring to the description of the war by Reinhard Graf zu Solms from 1544/45).

He was known to important humanists such as Willibald Pirckheimer , Albrecht Dürer , Peter Apian , Johannes Schöner , Hieronimus Reinmann and Philipp Melanchthon .

Hartmann discovered the inclination of the earth's magnetic field in 1544 , which he explained in a letter to Duke Albrecht of Prussia , along with other observations on magnetism (such as the induction of magnetic poles of opposite polarity when stroking with a magnet). The discovery of the inclination was hardly known to the public. Only Robert Norman constructed years later the first Inklinationsbussole . He was also probably one of the first to measure magnetic declination (1510, Rome).

His Fabrica Horologiorum from 1526/27 describes the manufacture of sundials. It was never printed, a splendid manuscript with gold print on parchment is in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

He also published the book on optics or perspective by Johannes Peckham in print. He left a manuscript by Johannes Werner on spherical trigonometry from his possession to Georg Joachim Rheticus for printing.

The Georg-Hartmann-Realschule in Forchheim and Straßen in Nuremberg and Eggolsheim are named after him. A plaque on the house where he was born in Eggolsheim reminds of him.

Fonts

  • Directorium , Nuremberg 1554 (treatise on astrology)
  • Publisher: Pisani perspectiva communis, Nuremberg 1542.

literature

  • Franz Maria Feldhaus :  Hartmann: Georg H. In: General German Biography (ADB). Volume 50, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1905, p. 27 f.
  • Adolf Wißner:  Hartmann, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 742 ( digitized version ).
  • Ralf Kern: Scientific instruments in their time . Cologne, 2010.
  • Hans Günther Klemm: Georg Hartmann from Eggolsheim (1489–1564). Life and work of a Franconian mathematician. Forchheim: Ehrenbürg-Gymnasium 1990 (104 pages, on an exhibition about Hartmann 1989)
  • Hans Günther Klemm: History of Science in the Regional Environment of a School. For example: the humanistic mathematician and engineer Georg Hartmann (1489–1564) from Eggolsheim near Forchheim (Upper Franconia). In: Werner B. Schneider (Ed.): Paths in the Physics Didactics , Volume 3. Erlangen: Palm and Enke 1993, pp. 43–56
  • John Lamprey: An examination of two groups of Georg Hartmann sixteenth century astrolabes and the tables used in their manufacture. In: Annals of Science, Vol. 54/2, 1997, pp. 111-142
  • John Lamprey: Hartmann's Practika. A Manual for making Sundials and Astrolabes with the compass and rule, Bellevue: Eigenverlag 2002
  • Ernst Zinner: German and Dutch astronomical instruments of the 11th-18th centuries Century, reprint of the 2nd edition, Munich: Beck 1979, pp. 357–368
  • Johannes Voigt: Correspondence of the most famous scholars of the age of the Reformation with Duke Albrecht of Prussia, Königsberg 1841
  • Theodor Gustav Werner: Nuremberg's production and export of scientific devices in the age of discovery. The Martin Behaim problem in economic history. In: Communications from the Association for the History of the City of Nuremberg (MVGN), Volume 53, 1965, pp. 69–149
  • Horst-Dieter Beyerstedt: Hartmann, Georg. In: Michael Diefenbacher, Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg. Nuremberg: W. Tümmels Verlag, 1999
  • Kurt Pilz: 600 years of astronomy in Nuremberg, Nuremberg 1977

Web links

Commons : Georg Hartmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The date of death is sometimes given as April 9th, and April 8th on the grave plate. See the illustration of the grave slab in Ludwig Engelhardt, Constanze Lindner Haigis, Dieter Nievergelt: A sundial crucifix by Georg Hartmann
  2. ↑ Astronomy Portal Nuremberg
  3. ↑ Ralf Kern: Scientific instruments in their time . Volume 1: From astrolabe to mathematical cutlery . Cologne 2010. p. 377.
  4. ↑ Such an astrological representation of the four temperaments
  5. ↑ Ludwig Engelhardt, Constanze Lindner Haigis, Dieter Nievergelt: A sundial crucifix by Georg Hartmann
  6. ↑ Barbara Hornberger: Discoveries in the graphic collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg , Working Group History of Cardboard Modeling, 3, p. 25
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Brückner: The language of Christian images (=  cultural-historical walks in the Germanic National Museum . Volume 12 ). Verlag des Germanisches Nationalmuseums, Nuremberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-936688-44-3 , p. 140–141 with ill. 129 .
personal data
SURNAME Hartmann, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and instrument manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1489
PLACE OF BIRTH Eggolsheim
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1564
Place of death Nuremberg