Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen

Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen. Portrait of August Kestner .

Title page of Der Aetna based on the manuscripts of the deceased Dr. Wolfgang Sartorius, Baron von Waltershausen / edited, independently edited and completed by Dr. Arnold of Lasaulx. First volume. Leipzig, published by Wilhelm Engelmann, 1880.

Wolfgang Sartorius Freiherr von Waltershausen (born December 17, 1809 in Göttingen , † March 16, 1876 ibid) was a German geologist .

life and work

Sartorius von Waltershausen studied in Göttingen. He paid particular attention to the natural sciences, particularly mineralogy . His first name goes back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who maintained a close friendship with his parents and was his godfather. His father Georg Sartorius was a writer and professor of economics and history at the University of Göttingen.

Sartorius von Waltershausen took part in the geomagnetic observations of Carl Friedrich Gauß , including on a trip through Europe in 1834/35, and then explored the Etna volcano in Sicily until 1843 (partly together with Christian Peters ). In his large atlas of Etna (1858–1861) he mapped the lava flows from past centuries on Etna. He also visited the volcanic island of Iceland for geological investigations, in 1846 a. a. accompanied by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Carl Bergmann , and made comparative studies on Etna ( physical-geographical sketch of Iceland 1847, About the volcanic rocks in Sicily and Iceland 1853, Geological Atlas of Iceland 1853). For thirty years until his death he was professor of geology and mineralogy at the University of Göttingen. In his essay Recherches sur les climats de l'époque actuelle et des époques anciennes of 1866, he took the view that the ice ages were caused by changes in the shape of the earth's surface. In 1856 he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1874 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Göttingen, Stadtfriedhof: grave of Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen

In old age Sartorius von Waltershausen was a close friend of Carl Friedrich Gauß. Shortly after his death, he published the well-known Gauss memorial . Sartorius von Waltershausen spoke on behalf of the university at Gauss' funeral. The anecdote about Gauss, who as a student surprises his teacher by quickly adding up an arithmetic series , and one of the most famous Gauss quotes, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics", is in the obituary handed down by Sartorius von Waltershausen.

The first description of the mineral argentopyrite in 1866 goes back to Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen. The mineral sartorite and the Waltershausen Glacier ( 73 ° 52 ′  N , 24 ° 20 ′  W ) in the Northeast Greenland National Park are named after him.

Works

• About the submarine volcanic eruptions in the tertiary formation of the Val di Noto in comparison with related phenomena on the Aetna . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1846 ( archive.org ).
• About the volcanic rocks in Sicily and Iceland and their submarine transformation . Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, Göttingen 1853 ( archive.org ).
• Explanations of the Geological Atlas of Iceland . Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, Göttingen 1853 ( archive.org ).
• Gauss in memory . S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1856 ( archive.org ).
• The aetna. 1858-1861.

literature

• Carl Wilhelm von Gümbel :  Sartorius: Wolfgang Freiherr S. v. Waltershausen . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 30, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 394 f.
• Franz Menges:  Sartorius v. Waltershausen (also just: v. Waltershausen), barons. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 438 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Karin Reich : Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen (1809–1876). In this. (Ed.): Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, Gauß to the memory. Edition at Gutenbergplatz Leipzig, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-937219-57-8 ( publisher information ).
• Karl Hans Wedepohl : Wolfgang Sartorius Freiherr von Waltershausen, 1809–1876. In: Karl Arndt , Gerhard Gottschalk , Rudolf Smend (Hrsg.): Göttinger Gelehre. Wallstein, Göttingen 2001, p. 174 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 209.
2. ^ Sartorius von Waltershausen: Gauss zum Gedächtnis , 1856, pp. 12-13 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
3. ^ Sartorius von Waltershausen: Gauss zum Gedächtnis , 1856, p. 79 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
4. ↑ Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen: Some subsequent remarks about the silver gravel ( PDF file, 140.4 kB). In: News from the K. Society of Sciences and the Georg August University , 1866, pp. 66–68.