Wolfgang Ludwig Krafft

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Wolfgang Ludwig Krafft ( Russian Логин Юрьевич Крафт / Login Jurjewitsch force ; born August 25 . Jul / 5. September  1743 greg. In Saint Petersburg , † November 20 . Jul / 2. December  1814 . Greg ) was an astronomer . He is the namesake for the moon crater Krafft .

Life

He was the son of the physicist and mathematician Georg Wolfgang Krafft (1701–1754), with whom he moved to his native Tübingen at the age of one . He attended the monastery schools in Denkendorf and Maulbronn , studied on a scholarship in Tübingen, and in 1764 earned his master's degree in philosophy.

In 1767 he went to the Petersburg Academy of Sciences as professor of astronomy .

In 1769 he was sent to Orenburg in the Urals to observe the transit of Venus .

In 1772 he supported Leonhard Euler , who had gone blind the previous year , in conjunction with his son Johann Albrecht Euler , Anders Johan Lexell and Nikolaus Fuss in the reworking of Theoria motus lunae , which had once won the British Parliament's prize. The same subject is dealt with in the Essai sur les lunaires d'Euler in the Nova Acta Petropolitana of 1788.

A great number of articles published by Krafft in the various compilations edited by the Russian Academy relate more to physical than to astronomical questions; he deals with B. the geomagnetic elements, the theory of the electrophore , the Canton 's luminous stone, the attraction of the spheroids , the achromatic lens glasses and the pendulum. The apparently underappreciated Essai sur les nombres premiers (Nova Acta, 1802) is dedicated to pure mathematics .

In 1804 he was appointed to the State Council.

Publications

  • Essai sur la méthode de trouver la latitude sur mer par les hauteurs simultanees de deux astres ; 1799
  • Méthode de Krafft, pour reduire la distance apparente de deux astres à la distance vraie ; 1812

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Ludwig Krafft in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
  2. ↑ Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Department Main State Archive Stuttgart - Finding aid A 275: Inventories, divisions, custodial and will files of Tübingen university members - structural view. In: landesarchiv-bw.de. www2.landesarchiv-bw.de, accessed on February 10, 2017 .
  3. ^ General literary newspaper . Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, January 1, 1806 ( books.google.de ).
  4. ↑ Mémoires . Typis Academiae Scientiarum, January 1, 1802.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Krafft, Wolfgang Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Крафт, Логин Юрьевич (Russian); Kraft, Login Jurjewitsch (German transcription)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1743
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1814
Place of death St. Petersburg