Heinrich Gustav Magnus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gustav Magnus, lithograph by Rudolf Hoffmann , 1856
Gustav Magnus 1841, painting by Eduard Magnus
Magnus effect

Heinrich Gustav Magnus (born May 2, 1802 in Berlin ; † April 4, 1870 there ) was a German physicist and chemist . He discovered a platinum salt (Magnus salt), set up the Magnus formula and provided the physical explanation of a phenomenon that has since been associated with his name ( Magnus effect ). The great physical tradition of the Humboldt University begins with the colloquia and other courses organized by Magnus in his house on the Kupfergraben ( Magnus House ) . He is considered the founder of one of the most important physics schools of the 19th century. His students include a. August Kundt , Emil Warburg and Hermann von Helmholtz .

Origin and family

Gustav Magnus' father, the wealthy cloth and silk merchant Immanuel Meyer Magnus, was baptized with his sons in Berlin in 1807 and acquired citizenship in 1809. In the same year he founded the F. Mart banking house in Berlin under his new name Johann Matthias Magnus . Magnus , which at times was one of the most important banks in Prussia. The upbringing and training of the sons was based on talent and inclination. While the two oldest sons took over the banking business and his brother Eduard Magnus embarked on a career as an artist, Gustav Magnus chose the natural science subject. Another brother became a farmer, another doctor. The mother Louise Marianne (born as Merle Fraenkel), who formed the center of the family and ran an open house, conveyed the generous way of life that continued in the charity of the sons. The family's residence for decades was Behrenstrasse 46 in Berlin's banking district .

Career

Magnus attended the Friedrichswerder high school and then the Cauer institution . After completing his military service as a volunteer with the Guard Rifle Battalion , he studied chemistry, physics and technology at the Berlin University from 1822 . He received his doctorate in 1827 under Eilhard Mitscherlich with a thesis on the chemical element tellurium. He continued his studies at the Stockholm Academy of Sciences in the laboratory of Berzelius , with whom he was on friendly terms until his death. Then he went to the Sorbonne to Gay-Lussac and Thénard . After his return he obtained the license to teach technology and physics in 1831. In addition to his lectureship at the university, he also taught at various institutions, such as the Berlin Artillery and Engineering School . One of his students there was Werner Siemens , who described in his memoirs how much he enjoyed the lessons, which "opened up a new, interesting world" for him. It was Magnus who later published Siemens' work on the dynamo-electric principle . In 1834 Magnus received an extraordinary professorship, in 1845 a full professorship in Berlin. In 1861/1862 he was the rector of the university. After Humboldt's death, Magnus initiated the establishment of the Humboldt Foundation , whose financial resources he ensured.

Act

Magnus' service to science spanned a forty-five year period, during which he produced more than 80 publications. He initially worked in the field of chemistry. Just one year after completing his doctorate, he described the Magnus salt named after him (Magnus' green salt, chromium platinum ammonium, an isomer of cisplatin ). In 1833 he discovered periodic acid . His work on the blood gases oxygen and carbon dioxide in 1837 brought new insights into the human metabolism. With the increasing focus on physics, his main interests were fluid mechanics and thermodynamics . In 1844, measurements of water vapor pressure led to the establishment of the Magnus formula . He built a maximum thermometer (geothermometer) to measure the heat inside the earth (e.g. in boreholes and mines). In 1852, with the publication About the deviation of the projectiles, he succeeded in establishing a phenomenon that is also noticeable in many types of ball games (football, tennis, golf, billiards) ( Magnus effect ). The knowledge of the relationships between the asymmetry of the air flow surrounding a rotating body (cylinder or sphere) led Anton Flettner to invent a vertical axis rotor , the so-called Flettner rotor , which can be used as a ship propulsion system. The testing took place in the 1920s with moderate success. After almost 60 years of standstill, Jacques Cousteau took up the idea again in 1985 and had his research vessel Alcyone equipped with a drive that uses the Magnus effect. The latest state of development is the cargo ship E-Ship 1 of the wind turbine manufacturer Enercon , which went into service in 2009 .

Cargo ship E-Ship 1 with four Flettner rotors
Magnus House, Kupfergraben 7, opposite the Pergamon Museum
Memorial plaque on the Magnus House

Others

In 1840 Magnus acquired the house at Kupfergraben 7, a baroque citizen's palace opposite the Pergamon Museum, just a few minutes' walk from the university . Here he took up his residence and here he set up a physics laboratory in addition to a lecture hall, which was also available to his students and is one of the oldest physics institutes in Germany. The renovation and the entire equipment of machines, apparatus, instruments and drawings were financed by Magnus from its own resources. The German Physical Society (DPG), which still exists today, emerged from the group of participants in his colloquia . The Magnus House will continue to be used by the DPG for events and as a branch with a historical archive.

Magnus was also one of the founding members of the German Chemical Society . A lifelong friendship connected him with the chemist Friedrich Wöhler , with whom he went on study trips together. In addition to other official missions, Magnus was the representative of Prussia at the meeting in Frankfurt am Main in 1865 for the introduction of the metric system in the German Confederation .

In the year he bought the house (1840), Magnus married Bertha Humblot, daughter of the Berlin publisher Peter Humblot (Duncker & Humblot) from a French family. The couple had three children. After Magnus' death in 1882, the widow set up the Gustav Magnus Foundation for needy students with a capital endowment of 60,000 marks (2013 purchasing power equivalent: around € 330,000).

The daughter Christine Magnus (* 1842) married her cousin Victor von Magnus (1828–1872), a partner in the F. Mart banking house , in 1866 . Magnus . After his death, her brother, the businessman Paul Magnus (1845–1930), took over the management of the family bank together with his cousin Georg Magnus and led it into liquidation.

Awards and honors

Grave in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery

Fonts (selection)

  • About some phenomena of capillarity , Poggendorffs Annalen , 1827, pp. 153-169
  • About some hydrogen compounds , Pogg. Ann. , 1829, pp. 521-527
  • Description of a maximum thermometer , Pogg. Ann. , 1831, pp. 136-149
  • About tartaric acid , Pogg. Ann. , 1833, pp. 367-387
  • On the effect of the armature on electromagnets and steel magnets , Pogg. Ann. , 1836, pp. 417-443
  • About carbide sulfate and ethionic acid , Pogg. Ann. , 1839, pp. 509-524
  • On the expansion of gases through heat , treatises of the Berlin Academy , 1841, pp. 59–84
  • Experiments on the elasticity of water vapor , Pogg. Ann. , 1844, pp. 225-247
  • About the blood's ability to absorb oxygen , Pogg. Ann. , 1845, pp. 177-206
  • On diffraction of light in empty space , monthly reports of the Berlin Academy , 1847, pp. 79–85
  • On the movement of liquids , treatises of the Berlin Academy , 1848, pp. 135–164
  • On the nutrition of plants , Erdmanns Journal für Praktische Chemie, pp. 65-75
  • About thermoelectrische Strom , Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie , 1851, pp. 1–32
  • About the deviation of the storeys , Treatises of the Berlin Academy , 1852, pp. 1–24
  • Hydraulic investigations , Pogg. Ann. , 1855, pp. 1-59
  • About direct and indirect decomposition by the galvanic current , Pogg. Ann. , 1858, pp. 553-580
  • About the passage of heat rays through the gases , monthly reports of the Berlin Academy , 1861, pp. 246-260
  • About the compression of vapors on the surface of solid bodies , Annalen der Physik , 1864, pp. 174–186
  • On emission, absorption and reflection of the types of heat emitted at low temperatures , treatises of the Berlin Academy , 1869, pp. 201–232

literature

  • Eduard Hjelt (Ed.): From Jac. Berzelius 'and Gustav Magnus' correspondence in the years 1828–1847 . Verlag Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1900
  • August Wilhelm von Hofmann, Gustav Magnus , reports of the German Chemical Society, July – Dec. 1870, pp. 993-1098, Dümmler, Berlin 1871
  • August Wilhelm von Hofmann:  Magnus, Heinrich Gustav . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 77-90.
  • Dieter Hoffmann (Ed.): Gustav Magnus and his house , Stuttgart, publishing house for the history of natural sciences and technology, 1995 (published on behalf of the German Physical Society), ISBN 978-3-928186-26-1
  • Stefan L. Wolff:  Magnus, Gustav von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 673 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Gustav Magnus  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, Vol. 14, p. 40, FA Brockhaus Mannheim 1991
  2. ↑ From Jac. Berzelius 'and Gustav Magnus' correspondence in the years 1828–1847 , ed. by Eduard Hjelt.
  3. ↑ Werner von Siemens, Memoirs , 6th edition, published by Julius Springer, Berlin 1901, p. 19.
  4. ↑ Werner von Siemens, Memorabilia , p. 253.
  5. ↑ August Wilhelm von Hofmann: Heinrich Gustav Magnus in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, published by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Volume 20 (1884), pp. 77-90.
  6. ^ August Wilhelm Hofmann, obituary for Gustav Magnus , Dümmler, 1871, p. 9.
  7. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 158.
personal data
SURNAME Magnus, Heinrich Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 4, 1870
Place of death Berlin