Johann Georg Forchhammer

Johann Georg Forchhammer

Johann Georg Forchhammer (born July 26, 1794 in Husum , † December 14, 1865 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish mineralogist and geologist .

Life

Johann Georg Forchhammer was a son of the teacher Johann Ludolph Forchhammer and his wife Margaretha Elisabeth . One of his brothers was Peter Wilhelm Forchhammer .

From 1815 to 1818 he studied in Kiel and Copenhagen . He accompanied Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) and Lauritz Esmarch (1765–1842) on the mineralogical investigation of Bornholm . In 1820 he received his doctorate in Kiel. phil. with a work on manganese . In 1822 he became a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen and in 1823 lecturer in chemistry and mineralogy. From 1825 he was a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences . In 1829 he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy at the newly founded polytechnic school and professor of mineralogy at the Sea Academy in Copenhagen. 1835–37 he published numerous works on the geology of Denmark and Scandinavia . In 1848 he became the curator of the Geological Museum. Around 1850 he worked with Japetus Steenstrup (1813–1897) and Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–1885) on the subject of Kökkenmöddinger . After Ørsted's death in 1851 he took over his post as director of the polytechnic school and secretary of the academy. In 1857 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and in 1860 a member of the Leopoldina . In 1862 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . In 1865 he published a work on the composition of lake water, which is considered a milestone in chemical oceanography. He introduced the term salinity and already identified 27 elements in lake water. He claimed that the salinity in the individual seas varies, but the relative proportions of the individual components remained constant.

Awards

• Title Budget Council 1851
• Title Conference Council 1857
• Dannebrogorden :
  • Knight 1836
  • Dannebrogsmann 1854
  • Commander 1860

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johann Georg Forchhammer
2. ^ William J. Wallace: The development of the chlorinity / salinity concept in oceanography
3. ↑ http://www.peter-hug.ch/lexikon/Forchhammer
4. ↑ 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. 83.
5. ↑ Member History: Johann G. Forchhammer. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 9, 2018 . 

Web links

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