Michael August Friedrich Prestel

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Michael August Friedrich Prestel

Michael August Friedrich Prestel (born October 27, 1809 in Göttingen , † February 29, 1880 in Emden ) was a German mathematician , meteorologist and cartographer .

Life

Prestel was the illegitimate son of Dorothea Sophie Beckmann. His alleged father was Michael Gottlieb Prestel . His grandfather was the engraver Johann Gottlieb Prestel from Frankfurt am Main .

Prestel studied mathematics and architecture in Göttingen from 1827 to 1831. He then moved penniless to the seaport town of Emden in 1833. Just one year later he received his doctorate at the University of Marburg with a dissertation on the main focus ( De centro gravitatis ).

In 1834 Prestel was employed as a teacher at the grammar school in Emden. Prestel became a senior teacher of mathematics and science and received the title of professor in 1867. He was a member of this educational institution for over 47 years until his death. Prestel was also a teacher at the navigation school and a member of the seafarers' examination board. After moving to the newly built grammar school in Emden in 1877, the Royal Wilhelms Grammar School, Prestel immediately set up his physical and chemical laboratory. Then he founded the establishment of a secondary school for girls, at which he later taught himself.

In Emden, Michael Prestel married Catharina Brons from Emden in 1848. Prestel had three sons, two daughters and a stepdaughter.

power

Even as a student, Prestel published a thesis on the perspective design of crystal shapes , which the famous crystallographers Christian Samuel Weiss and Wilhelm Ritter von Haidinger were deeply impressed by.

In the 1840s, Prestel campaigned for science classes to be introduced in high schools. For the programs of the Emden Gymnasium he wrote several treatises related to the didactics of science teaching. In a second period of his life Prestel devoted himself almost exclusively to literary activity with an emphasis on meteorology .

His merit, which Prestel earned for the Naturforschende Gesellschaft zu Emden , should be emphasized . He was a member of this institution for a total of 47 years, including 40 years as director. The expansion and constant effectiveness of the Natural Research Society in Emden is primarily due to him.

Fonts

Prestel has published in various association and magazines, namely in the writings of the Natural Research Society in Emden, the Leopoldina - Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists, in Petermann Mittheilungen, in the journal of the Austrian Society for Meteorology. He also published a large number of independent writings with meteorological content.

  • Instructions for the perspective design of the crystal forms. For mineralogists , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1833
  • De centro gravitatis , Marburgi Cattorum 1834 (Latin; dissertation)
  • The thermometer as an auxiliary tool for seafarers and the ocean currents from a nautical point of view , Theodor Hahn, Emden 1846
  • The starry sky , Emden 1849
  • Historical remarks on cattle lung disease in the province of Friesland since its emergence from 1842 to January 1, 1852 , Journal für Landwirthschaft, 1854, p. 505
  • Tabular floor plan of the experimental physics , Emden / Leipzig 1856 (22 plates)
  • The elementary representation of the conic sections for schools , Emden 1868
  • About the Austrian storm signals , Neue Hannoversche Zeitung, July 1869
  • Determination of the height of the clouds by using the electric telegraph , Journal of the Austrian Society for Meteorology 8, 1873, p. 182
  • Meteorological Atlas of Europe, forming the basis of storm and weather forecast (12 maps; unpublished)
  • Atlas of ocean and air currents on the eastern hemisphere (25 maps; unpublished)
  • Climatological Atlas of Germany (12 maps; unpublished)

Honors

  • Hanoverian Great Gold Medal of Honor for Art and Science
  • Royal Crown Order
  • Prussian Golden Medal for Art and Science
  • Admission to the Leopoldina (1855)
  • In 1864 a plant from the Vernonieae Prestel family was named in honor of Prestelia at the anniversary celebration of the Natural Research Society in Emden .
  • On the occasion of Prestel's 200th birthday on April 16, 2009, the City Council of Emden named Planstrasse D Professor-Prestel-Strasse in the D 144 building area .
  • The plant genus Prestelia Sch.Bip is named after Prestel . from the sunflower family (Asteraceae).

Memberships

  • Member of the Natural Research Society of Emden from 1814
  • Member and honorary member of 26 corporations
  • Member of the Imperial Society for Naturalists in Moscow
  • Member of the Austrian Society for Meteorology in Vienna
  • Member of the Medical Etiological Association in Berlin

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Prestel, Michael August Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prestel, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1880
Place of death Emden