Ludwig Friedrich Kämtz

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Ludwig Friedrich Kämtz

Ludwig Friedrich Kämtz (* 11. January 1801 in Treptow an der Rega , † December 8 . Jul / 20th December  1867 greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a German physicist and meteorologist. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern meteorology .

Life

The son of the master cloth weaver Martin Philipp Kämtz and his wife, the merchant's daughter Dorothea Louise Bleidorn, attended the community school in Treptow. At the instigation of the vice-principal Lorentz, he was able to attend the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Berlin in 1814 . There he was aroused his interest in the physics of the atmosphere by his teacher Friedrich Wilhelm Jungius .

From 1817 to 1819 he attended the orphanage school in Halle and then studied law and philosophy there at the university . In addition to philosophy, he also attended historical, ancient language and mathematical lectures. In 1822 he received his doctorate with a mathematical thesis . With research on the theories of the corpuscle theory of Isaac Newton and the wave theory of Augustin Jean Fresnel , he completed his habilitation in 1824.

In 1826 he gave lectures on meteorology and geomagnetism for the first time . In 1827 he became an associate professor and in 1834 a full professor at the University of Halle. His textbook on meteorology, published in the first edition in 1831, became a basic work for weather research. From 1832 he carried out investigations on glaciers in the Alps . His Textbook of Experimental Physics, the official teaching materials to the Prussian universities was, he published in 1840. In the same year hit Kämtz ago, the term "Cumulustratus" from the cloud classification of Luke Howard by stratocumulus to replace. The term is still in use today. He was a member of the Halle Masonic lodge to the three swords .

In 1842 he moved to a chair for theoretical and practical physics at the University of Dorpat . There he dealt in particular with questions of geomagnetism in Northern Europe and Russia . In 1849 he was raised to the Russian nobility.

In 1865 he was appointed a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences as the successor to Adolph Theodor Kupffer . At the same time he received the title of State Councilor and became director of the Central Physical Observatory of St. Petersburg, which he redesigned with regard to meteorological studies. Since 1841 he was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

family

Ludwig Friedrich Kämtz married Emilie Lorentz (1815–1843) in 1834. His second marriage was from 1844 to Emilie von Hoyningen , the daughter of a Livonian landowner. His daughter Constanze was married to the Indo-Germanist Berthold Delbrück .

Fonts

  • Investigations into the expansive force of the vapors . Hemmerde and Schwetschke, Halle 1826, ( digitized )
  • Textbook of meteorology . Gebauer, Halle, Volume 1: 1831; Volume 2: 1832 ( digitized version ); Volume 3: 1836
  • Experimental Physics Textbook , Halle 1842

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Hamblyn: The Invention of Clouds. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-458-17084-7 , pp. 261f.
personal data
SURNAME Kämtz, Ludwig Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Treptow at Rega
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1867
Place of death St. Petersburg