Wilhelm von Bezold

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Wilhelm von Bezold
Photo: Rudolf Dührkoop

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm von Bezold (born June 21, 1837 in Munich , † February 17, 1907 in Berlin ) was a German physicist and meteorologist .

Life

Bezold studied mathematics and physics in Munich and Göttingen . In 1860 he was in Göttingen with a dissertation on the theory of the capacitor doctorate , 1861 habilitation he at Philipp von Jolly as a lecturer in physics at the University of Munich. In 1866 he was appointed associate professor and in 1868 full professor at the Technical University of Munich . In 1878 he became director of the Bavarian Meteorological Central Station in Munich. Here he published a meteorological yearbook from 1879 and a daily weather report from the central station from 1881.

In 1875 he was appointed an extraordinary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , in 1883 he was elected a full member. In 1884 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy . Since 1906 he was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . In 1907 he received the Cothenius Medal of the Leopoldina.

In 1885 he accepted a call as professor of meteorology and director of the meteorological institute at the University of Berlin . He was the director of the institute until 1907. He did a great job building the network of meteorological stations in Prussia and Bavaria . The high altitude weather stations on the Brocken and subsequently on the highest Prussian mountain, the Schneekoppe , in Silesia (worked from June 1900) were created largely on his initiative .

From 1895 to 1897 he was President of the German Physical Society .

Bezold has done a lot of research in the field of electricity , especially electrical dust figures and discharge, as well as physiological optics. He set up a theory of harmony of colors determined by intervals and triads, for which he developed his own twelve-part color wheel. His meteorological work concerns twilight , the theory of thunderstorms , geomagnetism and the thermodynamics of the earth's atmosphere (introduction of the concept of potential temperature ).

Richard Aßmann and Reinhard Süring were his employees.

The Bezold-Abney phenomenon (light is perceived as colorless at very high intensities, also named after William de Wiveleslie Abney ) and the Bezold bridge phenomenon are named after him . Bezold effect or Bezold illusion (two colors seen at the same time merge to form a new color) describes an optical illusion he describes .

Wilhelm von Bezold died in Berlin in 1907 at the age of 69 and was buried in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Schöneberg . In the course of the leveling carried out by the National Socialists in the cemetery in 1938/1939, Bezold's remains were reburied in a collective grave in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf near Berlin.

family

He came from the Bezold patrician family in Rothenburg. The Ministerialrat Gustav von Bezold was his stepbrother.

Wilhelm von Bezold was married to Marie von Bezold, née Hörmann von Hörbach (September 10, 1848 - December 10, 1900). His son Oskar von Bezold (born December 20, 1874 in Munich; † March 5, 1934 in Sagan) was the Prussian district administrator in the Usingen district . His son-in-law was the physicist Ernst Bessel Hagen .

Works

  • About the physical meaning of the potential function in the theory of electricity. Habilitation thesis, Munich 1861.
  • The theory of colors with regard to arts and crafts. Braunschweig 1874. (2nd edition, completely revised and amended by W. Seitz. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1921)
  • About the law of color mixing and the physiological basic colors. In: Annalen der Physiologische Chemie 226, 1873, pp. 221–247.
  • On the thermodynamics of the atmosphere. Second message. Potential temperature. Vertical temperature gradient. Compound convection. In: Meeting reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin . 1888, pp. 1189-1206.
  • Meteorology as the physics of the atmosphere. Paetel, Berlin 1892.
  • Collected treatises from the fields of meteorology and geomagnetism. Edited in collaboration with A. Croym. by author Braunschweig: Ms. Vieweg and Son, 1906 ( digitized version )

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006. pp. 299, 465.
  2. ^ Gisbert Beyerhaus:  Bezold, von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 210 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm von Bezold  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Bezold, Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bezold, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1907
Place of death Berlin