Johan Carl Wilcke

Johan Carl Wilcke (born September 6, 1732 in Wismar , † April 18, 1796 in Stockholm ) was a German-Swedish physicist .

Life

Wilcke was born as the eldest son of the pastor at St. Georgen zu Wismar , Samuel Wilcke (1704–1773), and the merchant's daughter Anna Scheele (* 1700) from Kolberg . His birth town Wismar was then a fiefdom of the Swedish crown. In 1739 the father went as a pastor to the German congregation in Stockholm, where Johan Carl Wilcke attended the German school. The father had plans for him that would also make him a theologian. During his studies at the University of Rostock he met Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus , the son of a friend of his father's, and he nurtured Wilcke's passion for the natural sciences, especially physics. When Aepinus went to Berlin to work as an astronomer in 1755, he took Wilcke with him. Both did research there on electricity and magnetism and were students of Euler . One of Wilcke's works from this period was the translation of Benjamin Franklin's letter (s) on electricity . When Aepinus went to St. Petersburg in 1757, Wilcke moved to Stockholm as a lecturer, where he became a professor in 1770. The pay was very bad, however. He therefore only dared to marry in 1777. His financial circumstances improved only after he became secretary of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1784 . Since 1774 he was also a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala , since 1775 a member of the Royal Physiographical Society in Lund and since 1784 an external member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Wilcke did research in the field of electricity , there specifically on air condensers and electrophores and heat theory , here on latent and specific heat . He made the discovery of dielectric polarization 60 years before Faraday . Already in 1766 reported J. Beckmann, an attempt by Johan Wilcke, where this together by capacitors discharge Flint balls welded . Another area of research was the geomagnetic field and meteorological phenomena such as thunderstorms , tornadoes and cyclones .

His younger brother Samuel Gustav Wilcke (* 1736; † 1790) studied theology and eventually became a pastor, but also dealt with the natural sciences as a botanist and entomologist.

literature

Nordisk familjebok . Volume 32. Stockholm 1921, Sp. 441. ( Online )

Web links

Wikisource: Johan Carl Wilcke - Sources and full texts

Literature about Johan Carl Wilcke in the state bibliography MV
Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal , SS 1750, No. 19
Doctoral degree in the Rostock matriculation portal , SS 1757, deanery book, Phil. Fac., No. 4

Individual evidence

↑ 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. 259.

personal data
SURNAME	Wilcke, Johan Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wilcke, Johann Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German-Swedish physicist
DATE OF BIRTH	September 6, 1732
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wismar
DATE OF DEATH	April 18, 1796
Place of death	Stockholm

[1] 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. 259.