Johann Wilhelm Ritter

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Johann Wilhelm Ritter

Johann Wilhelm Ritter (born December 16, 1776 in Samitz near Haynau , Silesia , † January 23, 1810 in Munich ) was a German physicist and philosopher of early Romanticism .

“Johann Wilhelm Ritter is the most outstanding figure among the naturalists of the early romantic period in the Jena-Weimar cultural area. Although he was self-taught, he was valued as a scientific partner by personalities such as Goethe, Herder, Alexander von Humboldt and Brentano. ”As a physicist, he discovered UV radiation in 1801 and in 1802 invented the first accumulator , the Rittersche charge column.

Life

His father was born in 1748, was also called Johann Wilhelm Ritter and was a priest. His mother Juliane Friederike Ritter, née Decovius, was born in 1753. He had two brothers and three sisters. In April 1796, a student named Johann Wilhelm Ritter enrolled at the University of Jena to study natural sciences. He noted in the register that he was born on December 16, 1776 in Samitz, Silesia. He had attended Latin school there until he was 14, then had been an apprentice in a Liegnitz pharmacy and worked as a provisional for several years. In the Thuringian university town, Ritter did not pursue a regular course of study of the kind that was customary at the time. He preferred to stay in his small room and set himself scientific tasks, for example about "the real presence of the lime in raw bones". Finally he got caught up in the general interest in galvanism at the time . His first corresponding treatise was ten sheets of the most interesting remarks on Alexander von Humboldt's work on irritated muscle and nerve fibers.

On October 29, 1797, Ritter gave a lecture to the Natural Research Society in Jena about galvanism: some results from previous investigations about it, and finally: the discovery of a principle active in the whole of living and dead nature . His remarks met with a great response, but when he sent the manuscript to Johann Christian Reil in Halle for printing in his archive for physiology , he received the work back with the note that "such a remark was too bold and other similar things."

The young scientist was not discouraged and deepened his knowledge of galvanic processes with new experiments. In the Thuringian region, Ritter was soon recognized as a natural scientist, but often rubbed against the scientists employed at universities and academies. In 1799 he founded the magazine Beyangebote for a closer knowledge of galvanism . In it, he explained, among other things, the considerations he had gained from independent investigations that galvanic processes are always linked to oxidation and reduction . Therefore, together with Theodor Grotthuss (1785–1822) , Ritter is one of the real founders of the electrochemical theory , to which they made contributions independently of one another.

First quantitative water electrolysis by Johann Wilhelm Ritter in 1800

Many of Ritter's numerous discoveries have remained almost unnoticed to this day. One reason lies in his rambling manner of presentation, which is reminiscent of the writings of the Romantics with whom he was associated in Jena. He was the first to draw up today's so-called Voltaic Voltage Act in May 1801, months before it was poorly formulated by the later namesake. In the same year he invented the dry column and two years later he designed the preform of the accumulator with his charging column. In 1801 he discovered the ultraviolet rays at the end of the visible light spectrum .

In the autumn of 1804, Ritter finally received the long-awaited permanent position and the associated official scientific recognition, not in Thuringia, but from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , which accepted him as a full member and gave him the opportunity to continue his research. (The picture above shows him possibly in a Bavarian uniform.) From 1806, under the influence of the theosophist Franz Xaver von Baader , he turned to research into so-called underground electrometry, or dowsing . He conducted corresponding experiments extensively, which of course did not strengthen his scientific reputation among his colleagues.

In 1808 he published a first and last booklet on siderism (see also dowsing rod ) in order to then reflect on a system of natural forces in which all conceivable phenomena should be recorded. However, he only came to the fore, because he died barely 33 years old on January 23, 1810 in Munich, partly due to the galvanic self- experiments carried out on his body .

Fonts

  • Prove that a constant galvanism accompanies the life process in the animal kingdom. Weimar 1798.
  • Fragments from the estate of a young physicist. A paperback for nature lovers. Heidelberg 1810, first volume ; Second ribbon . Newly edited and provided with an afterword by Steffen and Birgit Dietzsch, Verlag Gustav Kiepenheuer, Leipzig and Weimar, 1984, ISBN 3-7833-6401-9 . - This is not his post mortem estate, but a collection of his physical and poetic sketches and aphorisms that Ritter himself compiled.
  • Discoveries in electrochemistry, bioelectrochemistry and photochemistry. Series: Ostwald's Classic of Exact Sciences, Volume 271. Selection, introduction and explanation by Hermann Berg and Klaus Richter, Verlag Harri Deutsch, Thun and Frankfurt / Main 1997, ISBN 3-8171-3271-9 . - This book brings together his most important scientific essays, including the invention of the accumulator and the discovery of ultraviolet light.

editor

reception

In the novel Die Unglückseligen by Thea Dorn , published in 2016, the life of the character of Johann Wilhelm Ritter is borrowed from that of the real person. The novel quotes extensively from the German Wikipedia article about knights.

literature

  • Werner E. Gerabek : Knight, Johann Wilhelm. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1253 f.
  • Alexander Gode von Aesch, Natural Science in German Romanticism , New York 1941, Reprint: Columbia University Press, New York 1966.
  • Erk F. Hansen, Perception and Implementation of Science in the Context of Early German Romanticism , Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt / New York 1992.
  • K. Jäger, F. Heilbronner (eds.): Lexikon der Elektrotechniker , VDE Verlag, 2nd edition from 2010, Berlin / Offenbach, ISBN 978-3-8007-2903-6 , pp. 359-360
  • Gustav Karsten :  Knight, Johann Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 675-678.
  • Friedrich Klemm , Armin Hermann (ed.): Letters from a romantic physicist. Johann Wilhelm Ritter to Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert and Karl von Hardenberg . Moos, Munich 1966.
  • Jürgen Maehder , Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni, Johann Wilhelm Ritter and the romantic acoustics on the way to an understanding of timbre , in: Jürgen Kühnel / Ulrich Müller / Oswald Panagl (eds.), The Schaubühne in the epoch of »Freischütz«: Theater and Romantic music theater , Verlag Müller-Speiser, Anif / Salzburg 2009, pp. 107–122.
  • Daniel Muzzulini, Genealogy of Tone Color, "Varia Musicologica", vol. 5, Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt / New York 2006.
  • Klaus Richter : The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter. A fate in the age of romance. Verlag Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-7400-1191-2 ; with extensive bibliography, including works, letters and Ritters' reception at the end of the book on pp. 185–265
  • Walter D. Wetzels: Johann Wilhelm Ritter: Physics in the field of activity of German romanticism . De Gruyter, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-11-003815-3 ; Reprinted by the same publisher from 2013 with ISBN 978-3-11-003815-6
  • Siegfried Zielinski : Electrification, tele-writing, seeing close up: Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Joseph Chudy, and Jan Evangelista Purkyne . In: Ders .: Deep Time of the Media. Toward an Archeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means . MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006, ISBN 978-0262740326 , pp. 159-203.
  • Robert J. McRae: Ritter, Johann Wilhelm . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 11 : A. Pitcairn - B. Rush . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1975, p. 473-475 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Wilhelm Ritter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Johann Wilhelm Ritter  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Richter: The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter , ISBN 978-3-7400-1191-8 , p. 1; also in the summarizing chronology of this book on p. 175
  2. ↑ in the summarizing chronology of the book by Klaus Richter: Das Leben des Physikers Johann Wilhelm Ritter , ISBN 978-3-7400-1191-8 , p. 178; also on p. 156 in this book
  3. ↑ Klaus Richter: The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter. A fate in the age of romance. 2003; Quote from the blurb of this book
  4. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Gunkel, C .: Full on battery. dated October 29, 2010.
  5. ^ K. Richter: The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter , p. 175; also listed in the book's directory of names on p. 182
  6. ^ K. Richter: The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter , p. 1 and p. 175; also listed in the book's directory of names on p. 182
  7. ↑ The siblings each with their names and dates of birth and, in some cases, death dates in the list of names in the book by K. Richter: The life of the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter on p. 182
  8. ↑ Werner E. Gerabek: Ritter, Johann Wilhelm. 2005, p. 1253.
  9. ↑ Peter von Becker : Ritter, Tod und Teufel
  10. ↑ The unfortunate ones. Munich 2016. pp. 78–82.
personal data
SURNAME Knight, Johann Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist, natural scientist and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Samitz near Haynau, Silesia
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1810
Place of death Munich