Johann Nepomuck Fischer

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Johann Nepomuck Fischer (born March 5, 1749 in Miesbach ; † February 21, 1805 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German astronomer and mathematician .

Life

Johann Nepomuck Fischer was born in Miesbach as the eldest son of the caretaker Franz Michael Fischer and Maria Anna Theresia, born. Born by Reifenegger. In 1766 he graduated from the Jesuit high school in Munich (today Wilhelmsgymnasium Munich ), then entered the Jesuit order and was temporarily at Regen in Neuburg an der Donau . After the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 secular clergy, he devoted himself more to his studies and was from 1776 a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

In 1779 Fischer became associate professor for mathematics and astronomy at the University of Ingolstadt , after he had won the main prize advertised by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences for his award paper on the diffraction of light . From 1781 Fischer was court astronomer at the electoral observatory in Mannheim . He was in close contact with the Bavarian Enlightenment Officer , Count Rumford , who referred him to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1786 . Here he worked for the astronomer Wilhelm Herschel .

In 1799 Fischer returned to Germany and tried to get a professorship at a university, which he did not acquire until 1803 when he became professor of mathematics at the University of Würzburg . Fischer died just two years later.

Johann Nepomuck Fischer is handed down as a free-spirited person who saw himself as a "self-thinker" who did not want anyone to dictate an opinion. This attitude made his professional career difficult, which is why he was denied a bigger career despite his abilities.

Fischer's sister Maria Anna Genoveva Petronilla was married to the historian Ignaz Joseph von Obernberg for the second time . She is the direct ancestor of the painter Christian Schad through the children of her first marriage to Georg Anton von Spitzl .

Fonts

  • Squint theory. Ingolstadt 1781.
  • Proof that the ringing of bells in thunderstorms is more harmful than useful. Munich 1784.
  • About the Unstern in April this year, a sheet to read and laugh about in the Carneval. Munich 1784.
  • other small, often anonymous writings

literature

  • Hernschier, Wolfgang: I wish I were a good shoemaker ... The unhappy life of the Bavarian astronomer Johann Nepomuck Fischer (1749–1805). A documentary biography. Bassum: Publishing house for the history of natural sciences and technology, 1997.
  • Langheiter, Alexander: Miesbach - A cultural guide . Miesbach: Maurus, 2006.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Leitschuh: The matriculations of the upper classes of the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , 4 vol., Munich 1970–1976; Vol. 3, p. 110.
personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Johann Nepomuck
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Miesbach
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1805
Place of death Frankfurt am Main