Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten

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Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav Karsten

Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten , also Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav Karsten (born December 15, 1732 in Neubrandenburg ; † April 17, 1787 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German mathematician and professor at the universities of Rostock , Halle an der Saale and Bützow , as well as rector the latter.

Life

Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten ( census : Karsten 1 ) is considered the oldest member of a scholarly family that is widely ramified in northern and central Germany. Of his eight siblings, his youngest brother Lorenz Karsten was particularly well known as an economist and agricultural scientist.

Karsten was born as the second son and oldest surviving child of the Neubrandenburg pharmacist Johann Christopher Karsten (1704–1779) and the pharmacist's daughter Magdalena Sophia, born in Güstrow. Thiel († 1754). When the parents lost their entire property in the great Neubrandenburg city fire in 1737 and there were problems with the reconstruction of the pharmacy in the following period, the family moved to Güstrow in 1740/41. There Karsten attended the Güstrow Cathedral School, where he passed his Abitur in 1749 and, since 1747, received private lessons in mathematics. In 1750 he matriculated to study theology and philosophy at the University of Rostock . From 1752 to 1754 he continued his studies at the University of Jena . After studying mathematics privately , Karsten received his doctorate degree in 1755 in Rostock . In the same year Karsten lectured as a private lecturer in Rostock before he filled the professorship for logic at the University of Rostock in 1758 as the successor to the late Johann Ludwig Engel .

In 1760 Karsten moved to the newly founded Princely University of Bützow and from then on took the professorship for logic, mathematics and physics . In 1764 Karsten was elected rector of the University of Bützow for the first time and continued to join in 1768/69. He also headed the Bützow University Observatory, which is located on his home, today Pfaffenstr. 3 found.

Karsten turned down an appointment at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and followed the call to the University of Halle in 1778 as the successor to Johann Andreas von Segner . He died in Halle at the age of 54 and was buried on April 19, 1787 in Halle's town church .

Karsten was a member of the Princely Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the Dutch Society of Sciences in Harlem, the Royal Danish Society of Sciences in Copenhagen and the Economic Society in Leipzig.

Karsten was married twice and in the second marriage with Katharina, geb. Kämper (1738–1779), daughter of the Rostock metaphysics professor Peter Christian Kämper , six children, including the later mineralogist Dietrich Ludwig Gustav Karsten .

Works

Karsten wrote numerous books and articles on mathematics, physics and technology as well as academic official publications. Outstanding are his eight-volume “teaching concept of all mathematics”, 1st edition 1767–1777, the three-volume “Beginnings of Mathematical Sciences”, 1778–1780 and the “Excerpt from the beginnings and teaching concepts of mathematical sciences”, 1781, 2nd ed 1785.

literature

  • Wolfgang Engel. In: Angela Hartwig, Tilmann Schmidt [Hrsg.]: The rectors of the University of Rostock. 1419-2000 . (Contributions to the history of the University of Rostock; issue 23). Universitätsdruckerei Rostock-Universitätsarchiv 2000. ISBN 3-86009-173-5 .
  • Siegmund Günther :  Karsten, Wenceslaus Johann Gustav . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 430 f.
  • Jürgen Hamel : The Bützow University Observatory. History, architecture, instruments and personnel . In: Contributions to the history of astronomy, Volume 11. Frankfurt a. M. 2011 (Acta Historica Astronomiae; 43), pp. 181-207. With a bibliography of Karsten's writings. ISBN 978-3-8171-1883-0

Web links

Wikisource: Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Enrollment of Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav Karsten in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ↑ Promotion to the master's degree from Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav Karsten in the Rostock matriculation portal
  3. ↑ His grave is in the double crypt arch 62/63.
personal data
SURNAME Karsten, Wenceslaus Johann Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Karsten, Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1732
PLACE OF BIRTH Neubrandenburg
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1787
Place of death Halle (Saale)