Georg von Neumayer

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Georg von Neumayer 1905
Georg von Neumayer on the excursion of the German Colonial Society to Neustadt an der Haardt , 1907, next to the President of the Society Johann Albrecht zu Mecklenburg
Grave site, main cemetery Neustadt an der Weinstrasse

Georg Balthasar Neumayer , since 1900 Ritter von Neumayer (born June 21, 1826 in Kirchheimbolanden , † May 24, 1909 in Neustadt an der Haardt ) was a Bavarian- Palatinate geophysicist and polar researcher .

Together with the Austrian Carl Weyprecht , he founded the International Polar Commission in 1879 , whose research projects 1882–1883 ​​led to the first International Polar Year . He is the namesake of the Neumayer III research station .

life and work

Georg Neumayer was the fifth child of the notary Georg Neumayer and his wife Theresia, née Kirchner. In 1832 the family moved to Frankenthal , where Neumayer attended the Progymnasium at times also the grammar schools in Speyer and Kaiserslautern . He then studied geophysics and hydrography at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until 1851 . Since 1849 he was an assistant at the physical institute and at the observatory in Bogenhausen . In 1848 he applied to the German fleet, but was rejected. Instead, he traveled to South America with the Hamburg Bark Louise and attended the navigation school in Hamburg , where he was qualified as a helmsman . Between 1852 and 1856 he traveled to Australia as a seaman on the Reiherstieg brig , where he also worked as a teacher among German emigrants in the gold fields. In 1857 he visited Australia a second time, this time as part of a scientific research trip to South Australia . In 1857, with the financial support of King Maximilian II of Bavaria and the Hamburg Senate, he founded the Flagstaff Observatory for Geophysics, Magnetism and Nautics on Flagstaff Hill in the center of Melbourne , which he was director until 1864. During this time he undertook numerous expeditions and surveys in the interior of the continent. He also climbs Mount Kosciuszko . In 1864 he returned to Germany. At the Geographentag in Frankfurt in 1865, he outlined the goals of creating a central office for hydrography and maritime meteorology and conducting a south polar expedition. He was also politically active in the association for the protection of German interests on the left bank of the Rhine and ran unsuccessfully for a mandate in the customs parliament. In 1868 he was elected to the board of the natural history association Pollichia . In 1865 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

After the establishment of the Empire, he moved to Berlin and became a hydrograph with the Admiralty. In this position he organized a. a. the circumnavigation of the gazelle and called the Wilhelmshaven observatory into being. In 1865 Neumayer suggested the creation of a German Sea Observatory , whereupon the North German Sea Observatory was founded on January 1, 1868 with the participation of Wilhelm von Freeden . The successor was the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg in 1874 , whose office Neumayer took over as director on January 1, 1875 and led it until 1903. He also introduced synoptic meteorology. During this time, Roald Amundsen lived with him as a young man in Hamburg, where he learned to carry out geomagnetic measurements. Neumayer devoted himself in particular to south polar research and was chairman of the International Polar Commission from 1879. In 1899 he was chairman of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . In 1900 Neumayer was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown , which was associated with the personal title of nobility . In 1903 he retired and moved to Neustadt, where he also died and is buried in the main cemetery. In 1906 he was awarded the Cothenius Medal of the Leopoldina. After his 80th birthday, Georg von Neumayer founded the Georg von Neumayer Foundation with the donations intended for him , the purpose of which is to promote natural research and the care of the countryside as well as young scientists and to preserve the memory of well-known researchers; there is a close connection between the foundation and Pollichia.

Others

Von Neumayer's great-nephew Fritz Neumayer was Federal Minister of Justice in the 1950s .

Honors

The research stations of the Federal Republic of Germany on the Ekström Ice Shelf in Antarctica are named after Georg von Neumayer, see:

From 1872 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . The Göttingen Society of Sciences made Neumayer an honorary member in 1901. He was an honorary member of the Thuringian-Saxon Society for Geography and in 1906 became an honorary member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory .

In his place of birth Kirchheimbolanden he gave the name to the Georg von Neumayer School and in Frankenthal for the Neumayer School. In both cities and in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse he was also granted honorary citizenship. In the Hamburg district of St. Pauli, Neumayerstraße was named after him in 1894, as was the Neumayerring in Kirchheimbolanden in Frankenthal.

There are also numerous geographical objects such as the Neumayer Canal , the Neumayer Steilwand , Cape Neumayer and Mount Neumayer in Antarctica, the Neumayer Glacier on South Georgia, Cape Neumayer on the North Greenland island of Luigi Amadeo Ø, the asteroid (9351) Neumayer and the lunar crater Neumayer named after him.

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The instruction in the navigation school was incumbent on the head of the Hamburg observatory , at that time Carl Rümker .
  2. ^ Karl Heinrich Wiederkehr: The Hamburg Seafaring ... , p. 22
  3. ↑ See pp. 52–55 in: Official report on the first gathering of German Masters and Friends of Geography , Frankfurt 1865, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DUP9CVuw32VwC~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA52~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D
  4. ↑ Website Deutsche Seewarte Hamburg
  5. ↑ PDF document on Neumayer, naming the order class ( memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Directory of the members of the Thuringian-Saxon Geography Association on March 31, 1885 ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Neumayer, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neumayer, Georg Balthasar von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geophysicist and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Kirchheimbolanden
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1909
Place of death Neustadt an der Weinstrasse