Johann Tobias Mayer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Tobias Mayer

Johann Tobias Mayer (born May 5, 1752 in Göttingen ; † November 30, 1830 there ) was a German physicist . He was mainly known for his textbooks on mathematics and natural science. His father was the astronomer Tobias Mayer .

Life

Johann Tobias Mayer was the first child of Tobias Mayer (1723–1762) and Maria Victoria, b. Gnügen (1723–1780), born in Göttingen . When Johann Tobias was ten years old, his father, the Göttingen professor of geography , physics and astronomy , who was also well-known at the time, died . In 1769 Johann Tobias Mayer began studying theology and philosophy at the still young University of Göttingen with Christian Meister (lawyer) and Abraham Gotthelf Kästner , and later with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg . After receiving his doctorate and habilitation in 1773, Mayer gave lectures in mathematics and made observations at the old Göttingen observatory . On November 17, 1779, he received a call to the University of Altdorf , where he worked from 1780 to 1786. He then taught mathematics and physics at what was then the University of Erlangen . In 1792 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1799 he was Lichtenberg's successor in the professorship of physics at the University of Göttingen. In the same year he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Since 1820 he was a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . One of his students was Enno Heeren Dirksen , who received his doctorate in 1820. In 1780 Mayer Johanna Friederike Juliane, b. Ende (1754-1822), the daughter of a Prussian major, married with whom he had five children. Mayer died in Göttingen in 1830. The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee named the Mayer Hills on the Antarctic Peninsula after him on August 31, 1962 .

Works

Johann Tobias Mayer is best known for his textbooks on mathematics and natural science. The beginnings of the theory of nature for the purpose of lectures on experimental physics appeared from 1801 in Göttingen. This textbook was the most influential of its time in German-speaking countries and it had a total of six editions by 1827. But Mayer also did his own research, for example in experimental physics and astronomy. In addition, he published articles in Grens and Gilbert's Journal of Physics .

  • Thorough and detailed instruction on practical geometry. 5 parts, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1792–1809. Digitized

literature

Web links

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. 163.
  2. ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . Vol. 2, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , p. 1019 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Johann Tobias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1752
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1830
Place of death Goettingen