Karin Figala

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Karin Figala (born August 7, 1938 in Vienna , † November 29, 2008 in Munich ) was an Austrian historian of chemistry and alchemy.

Life

Figala, daughter of a PhD chemist and pharmacist (Norbert Figala) and his wife Lucy, b. Steude went to secondary school in Frankfurt am Main, passed the school leaving examination there in 1958 and studied pharmacy and food chemistry in Bern, Bonn and Hamburg from 1960. In 1963 she passed the pharmaceutical state examination with the grade "very good" and in 1964 she was appointed pharmacist. She spent a year and a half in the pharmaceutical industry before receiving her doctorate in the history of science under Günter Kallinich at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1969 (dissertation in mathematics and natural sciences: Mainfränkische Zeitgenossen " Ortolfs von Baierland ". A contribution to the earliest health care in the dioceses of Würzburg and Bamberg ). After working as an assistant and later a lecturer, she completed her habilitation in 1977 in Munich ( The Composition Hierarchy of Matter. Newton's quantitative theory and interpretation of qualitative alchemy ). She went to Cambridge for long periods of study, for example in 1979 with an Ann Horton Visiting Research Fellowship at Newnham College to study Newton's alchemical manuscripts.

From 1980 she was a university professor at the Institute for the History of Exact Natural Sciences and Technology at the Technical University of Munich (as successor to Joachim Otto Fleckenstein ), where she headed the Department for the History of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Descriptive Natural Sciences. In 1999 she retired. She suffered increasing kidney failure , which severely hampered her work, and underwent a bilateral kidney transplant in Boston in 2001 .

She was involved in the publication of the works of Nicolaus Copernicus and researched the alchemist Michael Maier . Figala is particularly concerned with alchemy and chemistry in the Renaissance (court of Rudolph II in Prague, including Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe ) and England in the 17th century ( Robert Boyle , Isaac Newton (she was on the advisory board for the editing of his unpublished writings , responsible for alchemy), the circle around Samuel Hartlib ). With Claus Priesner she published an alchemy lexicon. Most recently she worked on the revision of her habilitation on Newton's alchemical work and wanted to further explore the inner relationship between Newton's theological, alchemical and scientific thinking, but could no longer complete this.

In addition to theoretical analysis of Newton's writings, she also carried out some of his experiments, such as the production of a silver-like alloy named by Newton Diana (1682) from bismuth ore, bismuth and tin in precisely defined proportions.

In 1976 she received the Prix d'Académie d'Alsace in Colmar, in 1978 she became a corresponding member of the Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences ; she was also a full member of the Society for the History of Science.

Fonts (selection)

  • Newton's Alchemy. In: I. Bernard Cohen , George E. Smith (Eds.): Cambridge Companion to Newton. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2002, ISBN 0-521-65177-8 , pp. 370-386, doi : 10.1017 / CCOL0521651778.013 .
  • with Claus Priesner (Ed.): Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science. Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44106-8 .
  • with Ulrich Neumann: "Author Cui Nomen Hermes Malavici". New Light on the Bio-Bibliography of Michael Maier (1569-1622). In: Piyo Rattansi, Antonio Clericuzio (Ed.): Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries (= Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idées. 140). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht et al. 1994, ISBN 0-7923-2573-7 , pp. 121-147, doi : 10.1007 / 978-94-011-0778-5_6 .
  • with Ulrich Neumann: Chymia - the true queen of the arts. Life and writings of the Holstein poet, doctor and alchemist Michael Maier (1569–1622). In: Chemistry in Our Time . Vol. 25, No. 3, 1978, pp. 143-147, doi : 10.1002 / ciuz.19910250305 .
  • The exact alchemy of Isaac Newton. His “lawful” interpretation of alchemy, shown using the example of some authors who influenced him. In: Negotiations of the Natural Research Society in Basel. Vol. 94, 1984, ISSN  0077-6122 , pp. 157-228.
  • Newton's rational system of alchemy. In: Chemistry in Our Time. Vol. 12, No. 4, 1978, pp. 101-110, doi : 10.1002 / ciuz.19780120402 .
  • Newton as alchemist. In: Research Institute of the Deutsches Museum for the History of Natural Sciences and Technology. Publications. Row A: Small messages. 201, 1977, ISSN  0418-9949 , Bl. 103-137; and: Essay Review: Newton as Alchemist: The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon". In: History of Science. Vol. 15, No. 2, 1977, pp. 102-137, doi : 10.1177 / 007327537701500202 , (essay review of the book by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs : The foundations of Newton's alchemy. 1975).
  • Newton's alchemical studies and his idea of ​​the atomic structure of matter , Appendix A, in: AR Hall, Newton, Adventurer in Thought, Cambridge UP 1992, p. 381

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar Online ; Obituary notice of the family. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . No. 281/2008, p. 33.
  2. ↑ Karin Figala: Mainfränkische contemporaries 'Ortolfs von Baierland'. A contribution to the earliest health system in the dioceses of Würzburg and Bamberg. Scientific dissertation, Munich 1969, p. 306 ( curriculum vitae )
  3. ↑ Karin Figala: Mainfränkische contemporaries 'Ortolfs von Baierland'. Frank, 1969 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ The habilitation thesis was published in abridged form in the negotiations of the Natural Research Society Basel. A second part edited Newton's three manuscripts on alchemy.
  5. ↑ Henk Kubbinga, Karin Figala (1938-2007), Isis, Volume 101, 2010, p. 605
personal data
SURNAME Figala, Karin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 2008
Place of death Munich