Julius Ruska

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Julius Ferdinand Ruska (born February 9, 1867 in Bühl , † February 11, 1949 in Schramberg ) was a German orientalist , science historian and educator .

life and work

Julius Ruska was the son of Ferdinand Ruska (1826–1901), teacher in Grafenhausen and Bühl, and Julie Ruska (1832–1890), b. Saas, born.

He attended high school in Rastatt , and studied from 1884 at the universities of Strasbourg , Heidelberg and Berlin . Initially working as a teacher of mathematics and natural sciences at the Kurfürst-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Heidelberg from 1889 to 1910 , he began studying ancient oriental languages ​​with the aim of researching the history of the sciences in Islam. In 1895 he received his doctorate in philosophy with the work The Quadrivium from Severus bar Sakku's book of dialogues . From 1908 to 1913 Ruska was editor of the magazine Das Pädagogische Archiv .

For the final editing and publication of the work The Gospel of John based on the Syrian palimpsest manuscript found in the Sinai Monastery of his father-in-law Adalbert Merx , who died in 1909 , Ruska took a year off from teaching. In 1911 he completed his habilitation in Semitic philology with the work The Stone Book of Aristotle . In 1915 he was appointed associate professor at Heidelberg University.

In 1921 Ruska discovered a copy of the work Secret of the Secrets of the Persian doctor and alchemist Rhazes (Al-Râzî, Abû Bakr Muhammed ibn Zakariyâ), who lived in the Middle Ages . In 1924 Ruska founded the Institute for the History of Natural Science of the von Portheim Foundation in Heidelberg. From 1927 he was an honorary professor at the University of Berlin and director of the newly founded research institute for the history of natural sciences. In the same year he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . In 1931 the institute merged to form the new institute for the history of medicine and the natural sciences . Ruska headed the Department of History of Natural Sciences and worked with the doctor and science historian Paul Diepgen (Head of the Department of History of Medicine). In 1938 he retired .

Ruska's best-known work is the publication and commentary on the Tabula Smaragdina (1927) and the Turba Philosophorum (1931). In 1917 his On the oldest Arabic algebra and arithmetic was published .

During the bombing raids on Berlin , Julius Ruska moved with his wife Elisabeth (1874–1945) to the in-laws of his son Ernst Ruska in Schramberg in the Black Forest, where he lived until his death.

Julius Ruska had seven children with his wife Elisabeth, including the aforementioned Ernst Ruska (1906–1988, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics ) and Helmut Ruska (1908–1973, pioneer of electron microscopy ). He was also the father-in-law of Bodo von Borries' (1905-1956), another father of electron microscopy.

He also published on geology and mineralogy.

Fonts (selection)

  • On the oldest Arabic algebra and arithmetic, in: Session reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, phil.-hist. Class 1917
  • Greek representations of planets in Arabic stone books. Heidelberg Akad. Wiss. 1919
  • Arab Alchemists I: Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Muawiya, Heidelberg files of the von Portheim Foundation, No. 6, 1924
  • Arab Alchemists II, Ja'far al Sādiq, the sixth Imām, Heidelberg files of the von Portheim Foundation, No. 10, 1924
    • Both also as Arab Alchemists , Heidelberg: Winter 1924, reprint Wiesbaden, Sendet 1967
  • Tabula Smaragdina . A contribution to the history of hermetic literature, Heidelberg files of the von Portheim Foundation, issue 16, 1926
  • Jābir ibn Hayyān and his relationship with Imām Ja'far al Sādiq, in: Der Islam, Volume 16, 1927, pp. 264–266
  • with P. Kraus : The collapse of the Jābir legend, 1930
  • Sal ammoniacus, nušādir and salmiak. In: Meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences: phil.-historical class 14, 1923, 5, pp. 3–23.
  • as editor: Studies on the history of chemistry ( Edmund von Lippmann commemorative publication ), Springer Verlag 1927
  • Turba philosophorum : A contribution to the history of alchemy. In: Sources and studies on the history of natural sciences and medicine. Volume 1, 1931.
  • About imitation of precious stones. In: Sources and studies on the history of science and medicine. Volume 3, 1933, pp. 108-119.
  • The alchemy of Avicenna. In: Isis. Volume 21, 1934, pp. 14-51.
  • as translator and editor: Al-Rāzī's book The Secret of Secrets. In: Sources and studies on the history of science and medicine. Volume 4, 1935, pp. 153-238.
  • The book of alums and salts. A basic work of late Latin alchemy. Verlag Chemie, Berlin 1935.
  • The stone book of Aristotle, with literary historical research based on the Arabic manuscript of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1912.
  • Al-Rāzī's book Secret of Secrets. 1937 (German translation and commentary).
  • Geological forays into Heidelberg's surroundings, Leipzig: Nägele 1908
  • Basic features of mineralogy, Quelle and Meyer 1913, 2nd edition 1921
  • Methodology of mineralogical-geological teaching, Enke 1920
  • Al Razi (Rhases) as a chemist. Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie 35 (103), pp. 719-721 (1922), ISSN  0932-2132

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry of Julius Ruska at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Ruska, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruska, Julius Ferdinand (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German orientalist, science historian and educator
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Buhl
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 1949
Place of death Schramberg