Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger

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Portrait of Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger, 1844, after a painting, oil on canvas, by Heinrich Leibnitz , from the Tübingen Professorengalerie
Gravestone at the Tübingen city cemetery

Johann Gottlieb Friedrich Bohnenberger , from 1813 von Bohnenberger (born June 5, 1765 in Simmozheim ( Duchy of Württemberg ), † April 19, 1831 in Tübingen , Kingdom of Württemberg ), was a German astronomer , mathematician and physicist . He played an important role in the development of geodesy .

Life

Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger is the son of the pastor and mechanical engineer Gottlieb Christoph Bohnenberger . Father and son are the inventors of two completely different devices, both of which are called the Bohnenberger machine .

Bohnenberger's observatory in Altburg

Bohnenberger studied in Tübingen and became parish vicar in 1789 . But soon he turned to his secret love, the natural sciences . In his father's small workshop he built a wooden quadrant with which he determined the geographical location of Altburg fairly precisely. At the same time, he conducted investigations into the influence of instrument errors. When he received an English sextant from Jesse Ramsden , he was able to make more reliable measurements and troubleshooting. These provided the material for his instructions for geographical location determination , which appeared in 1795, especially by means of the mirror sextant . With this book, Bohnenberger not only succeeded in clearly working through a complicated subject, he also suddenly became known because of his explanations. To train in astronomy , he stayed with Franz Xaver von Zach at the Gotha observatory . In 1796 he was appointed adjunct professor at the Tübingen observatory and became an associate professor in Tübingen in 1798 and a full professor in 1803. In 1797 he became a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , 1809 of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and 1826 of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . From 1820 he was a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences .

University of Tübingen in Bohnenberger's time

Tübingen's path to its first natural science faculty as it is today falls into the time of Bohnenberger. Already in 1535 the Reformation gave the Tübingen Artistic Faculty a professorship, the holder of which was to represent “Physica”. The purpose of the position was to introduce the young theologians to the Aristotelian natural philosophy . In retrospect, none of its owners made a significant contribution to physics in today's sense. In 1687 this professorship was initially canceled in order to be filled again later.

In 1803 an apartment was set up for the astronomer Bohnenberger in the rooms in Hohentübingen Castle and at the same time considerable improvements were made to the observatory. The large tower room under the observatory was also left to Bohnenberger. For a new telescope, he had a rotunda with a rotating roof built in the garden in front of the castle, probably at his own expense. The caretaker had previously run a prosperous economy there.

With the introduction of kingship in 1806, the university ended as a corporation that maintained itself from its own estates. It was now financed from the state treasury. Their further expansion could thus be adapted to the needs of experimental subjects such as physics. Accordingly, Bohnenberger designed and procured many new devices.

Memorial plaque for Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger at his place of work at Hohentübingen Castle , placed in the courtyard of the castle

Succession

Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger died on April 19, 1831 in Tübingen after 33 years as a professor. When the founder of land surveying , a physicist and astronomer, died, people in Tübingen rhymed: "The observatory is now orphaned / since Bohnenberger traveled to heaven himself."

In 1832 the physicist Johann Gottlieb Christian Nörrenberg was appointed as successor to Bohnenberger's chair.

The last remains of the observatory were removed in 1955 and then a conical roof was added to the tower as before.

Activities and inventions

Württemberg land survey

Johann Gottlieb Bohnenberger tried to correct instrumental measurement errors through theoretical analysis. Like Carl Friedrich Gauß , who corresponded with him, he later devoted his labor to land surveying , for which he also laid the theoretical foundations.

From the Hohentübingen fortress he was in charge of the scientific surveying of Württemberg . Conveniently, he set the zero point for the mapping in his office in the northeast tower, high above the city. To this day, all of the Württemberg land maps are oriented towards this zero point.

In the following, Bohnenberger also headed the new, complete Württemberg state survey with the Tübingen observatory as the center and a basic measurement line in the Ammertal .

Bohnenberger machine / gyroscope

Approx. Machine manufactured by Bohnenberger in 1810

Based on the Bohnenberger machine, the invention of the gyro-mounted gyro by JGF Bohnenberger (1810), the gyroscope was designed and manufactured by Léon Foucault in 1852 . Bohnenberger's original instrument, on the other hand, served to illustrate the rolling movement (so-called precession ) of the earth's axis, which was already observed in antiquity .

Instruments in use today such as the gyrocompass , the course top and the artificial horizon are based on the gyroscope by Foucault 1852. Its practical application for seafaring was only established in 1907 by Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe through appropriate development and construction. The fact that the attribution of authorship is not always entirely unproblematic in technical areas can be seen from the fact that there was a patent dispute between Anschütz-Kaempfe and Elmer Ambrose Sperry in 1914 about the originality of the invention of the gyrocompass , in which Albert Einstein, among others, worked as a patent expert has been.

As part of a Gravity Probe B satellite mission launched in 2004, extremely precise gyroscopes are being used to measure several predictions of the curvature of space based on Einstein's theories. The object of investigation is not only the curvature of space - due to the mere existence of the earth - but especially the distortion of the curvature of space due to the rotation of the earth, the so-called frame dragging and thus a topic very similar to the original application of Bohnenberger's invention ( precession ).

Four twist wheels derived from the gimbal mounted gyro support z. B. the attitude control and the course correction maneuvers of the ISS . (They were repaired as part of STS-114 .)

At the end of 2004, Bohnenberger's oldest surviving machine, a gyroscope made of brass rings and ivory, was found in the physics collection of the Kepler grammar school in Tübingen . The discoverer was Dr. rer. nat. Alfons Renz, private lecturer at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.

Electroscope

Another invention was that of a special, bipolar electroscope . In contrast to the predecessor model by Alessandro Volta , the alignment of a charge (negative or positive) could also be determined during the measurement by aligning a gold plate that is hung between two poles.

Reversion pendulum

Bohnenberger is said to have developed the reversion pendulum (after Prony and before Kater ) in several sources .

Works

  • Instructions for the use and correction of astronomical instruments , o. O., o. J. ( digitized version )
  • Foundations of Higher Analysis . Tübingen: Cotta, 1812
  • Instructions for geographic location determination, especially by means of the mirror sextant . Göttingen: Cotta, 1795 ( digitized version, publisher: Vandenhök and Ruprecht)
  • Astronomy . Tübingen: Cotta, 1811
  • Description of a machine to explain the laws of the earth's rotation about its axis and the change in the position of the latter . Tübingen Ossiander, 1817 (deals with an invention by Bohnenberger, the so-called Bohnenberger machine , a swing machine )
  • Tübingen sheets for astronomy and related sciences . -Tübingen: Cotta, 1816 ff (Bohnenberger founded this first astronomical journal with his colleague Bernhard August von Lindenau and later ran it together with Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth )

Honors

In 1813 he received the Knight's Cross of the Württemberg Civil Merit Order and the associated personal, non-inheritable nobility . In 1818 he was awarded the Knight's Cross from the Order of the Württemberg Crown . The moon crater Bohnenberger is named after him.

Individual evidence

  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. 43.
  2. ^ Member entry of Johann Gottlieb von Bohnenberger at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on December 31, 2016.
  3. ^ Members of the previous academies. Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on February 24, 2015 .
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter B. Académie des sciences, accessed on September 22, 2019 (French).
  5. ↑ 2010 University of Stuttgart
  6. ↑ See Jörg F. Wagner; Helmut Sorg; Alfons Renz: The machine of Bohnenberger . In: GeoBit 10 (2005), 4 GIS, pp. 19-24; The same: The machine of Bohnenberger . In: European journal of navigation. The leading journal for systems, services and applications, Vol. 3 (2005), 4, pp. 69-77; Alfons Renz: Bohnenberger's gyroscope. A typical Tübingen invention . In: Tübinger Blätter 93 (2007), pp. 27–34.
  7. ↑ 1997 University of Bonn (PDF file; 13 kB)
  8. ↑ University of Tübingen
  9. ↑ Naturkrafterna och deras användning (natural forces and their application) p. 99 (1873-1875) Author: Friedrich Georg Wieck, Otto Wilhelm Alund
  10. ^ Royal Württemberg Court and State Manual 1815, p. 39
  11. ↑ Royal Württemberg Court and State Handbook 1831, p. 30

literature

  • Christian Bruhns:  Bohnenberger, Johann Gottlieb Friedrich v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 81 f.
  • Wilhelm Jordan : Bohnenberger. In: Journal of Surveying. Volume 26. Stuttgart: Konrad Wittwer, 1897.
  • Viktor Kommerell : Johann Gottlieb Friedrich Bohenberger. Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy 1765–1831 . In: Schwäbische Lebensbilder , Vol. 1, ed. by Hermann Haering and Otto Hohenstatt, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1940, pp. 38–53.
  • Franz A. Bundschuh:  Bohnenberger, Johann Gottlieb v .. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 421 ( digitized version ).
  • H. Reist: Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger Thoughts on his 200th birthday . In: “Allgemeine Vermessungsnachrichten” 72, 1965, pp. 218–241.
  • Jörg F. Wagner; Helmut Sorg; Alfons Renz: The machine of Bohnenberger . In: “GeoBit” 10, 2005, 4 GIS, pp. 19–24.
  • Jörg F. Wagner; Helmut Sorg; Alfons Renz: The machine of Bohnenberger . In: “European journal of navigation. The leading journal for systems, services and applications ", Vol. 3 (2005), 4, pp. 69-77.
  • Andor Trierenberg: Johann Gottlieb Friedrich Bohnenberger (1765–1831) and the gyroscope . Stuttgart (Master's thesis), 2006.
  • Wolfgang Schaller: Bohnenberger's astronomical instruments by Wilhelm Gottlob Benjamin Baumann . In: Klaus Hentschel (Ed.): Invisible hands. On the role of laboratory assistants, mechanics, draftsmen, etc. Amanuenses in physical research and development work . Diepholz, Stuttgart, Berlin: GNT-Verlag 2008, pp. 193-200.
  • Andor Trierenberg; Jürgen Kost: JGF Bohnenberger and his mechanics . In: "DVW" 2, 2010, pp. 60–69.
  • Alfons Renz: Bohnenberger's gyroscope. A typical Tübingen invention . In: “Tübinger Blätter” 93 (2007), pp. 27–34.
  • Eberhard Baumann: JGF Bohnenberger's first geodetic-cartographic work . In: 2/2010, pp. 78-113.
  • Ernst Seidl u. a .: The sky. Ideal image and understanding of the world . Tübingen: MUT, 2011, ISBN 978-3-9812736-2-5
  • Gerhard Betsch CF Gauß's correspondence with JGF Bohnenberger and the scientific relationships between the two astronomers . In: “Messages from the Gauss Society” 50, 2013.
  • Andor Trierenberg: The court and university mechanics in Württemberg in the early 19th century . Co-reporter: Prof. Dr. JF Wagner. Historical Institute Dept. GNT of the University of Stuttgart 2013. Phil. Diss. Univ. Stuttgart, March 20, 2013. See in particular pp. 406–450 ( digitized version ).
  • Eberhard Baumann: Johann Gottlieb Friedrich Bohnenberger: Pioneers of the Industrial Age , Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2016, ISBN 978-3-17-028960-4 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bohnenberger, Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Simmozheim ( Württemberg )
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1831
Place of death Tübingen