Gottfried Osann

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Gottfried Wilhelm Osann

Gottfried Wilhelm Osann (born October 26, 1796 in Weimar ; † August 10, 1866 in Würzburg ) was a German chemist and physicist .

family

Gottfried Osann was the fifth son of the Weimar government councilor Friedrich Heinrich Gotthelf Osann (1753-1803). His mother Amalie Caroline Friederika Hufeland (1766–1843), a sister of Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland , married the Minister of State Christian Gottlob von Voigt after the early death of his father in 1815 . His brother Emil Osann (1787–1842) was professor of medicine in Berlin, his brother Friedrich Gotthilf Osann (1794–1858), a childhood friend of Arthur Schopenhauer, was professor of philology in Jena and Giessen.

Life

Drawing from 1823 from the estate of Adele Schopenhauer , his childhood friend

Due to the influence of his stepfather Christian Gottlob von Voigt, who was friends with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Osann studied natural sciences, especially chemistry. During his studies he became a member of the original fraternity in Jena in 1817 and of the Erlangen fraternity in the winter semester of 1818/19 . In 1817 he took part in the first Wartburg Festival.

From 1819 Gottfried Osann was a private lecturer in physics and chemistry at the University of Erlangen , from 1821 to 1823 at the University of Jena and again in Erlangen in 1823. In 1823 he received a reputation as a Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Tartu . In 1828 he moved to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Würzburg as a professor of chemistry and physics , where he held the post of rector in 1848/49. His tenure falls extract the Würzburg students to Wertheim.

Osann published a number of authoritative works, including on the art of measuring the chemical elements (Tartu 1825, Jena 1830). Later writings on chemical physics and medical optics were added. Together with Jöns Jakob Berzelius , he was very close to the discovery of the element ruthenium in 1827 . Just like later Karl Ernst Claus , they noticed residues from platinum ores that were not soluble in aqua regia . Osann postulated three new elements for this, but could not characterize them sufficiently because of their small amount.

He was a co-founder of the Physical-Medical Society in Würzburg and since 1835 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Relationship with Adele Schopenhauer

In the years 1823-1826 he was the lover of Adele Schopenhauer . However, there was never an engagement or marriage. After a discussion on February 13, 1826, they parted ways. In her diary, Adele Schopenhauer described the dialogue:

“Gottfried,” I said, “you shouldn't deny the past, you love me less than I thought - it's a mistake, not a wrong, but you see, even your words contradict each other. And that's always how it was. Sometimes you treated me like a little girl playing, sometimes like a man, like a serious friend to whom one absolutely indulges one's innermost being, sometimes you have completely satisfied my femininity, you have never been clear about your feelings for me! "

Even after Gottfried Osann married "a beautiful young girl of low class" in 1827, Adele Schopenhauer confided her love to her brother Arthur Schopenhauer years later :

I only know one person whom I could marry without reluctance, and he is married.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gottfried Osann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. "Conversations with Johann Wolfgang Goethe" , zeno.org
  2. Ernst Höhne: The Bubenreuther. History of a German fraternity. II., Erlangen 1936, p. 44.
  3. ^ The departure of the Würzburg students to Wertheim in 1849 . In: Archive for University and Student History, Issue 3 (Sept. 1933), pp. 95-109.
  4. Prof. Dr. Gottfried Wilhelm Osann , members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , directory of the members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences since 1759
  5. Quoted from Adele Schopenhauer: Diary of a lonely . Edited by Prof. Dr. HH Houben , Verlag von Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig 1921. The spelling has been retained and not adapted to today's spelling.
  6. a b So Louis Stromeyer in his memoirs , quoted from Heinrich Hubert Houben's comments on Adele Schopenhauer's diaries, p. 262.