Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

63
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg bigraphy, stories - German scientist, satirist

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg : biography

1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. Today, he is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modeled on the English bookkeeping term "scrapbooks",Lichtenberg explained the purpose of his "scrapbook" in his notebook E: Die Kaufleute haben ihr Waste book (Sudelbuch, Klitterbuch glaube ich im deutschen), darin tragen sie von Tag zu Tag alles ein was sie verkaufen und kaufen, alles durch einander ohne Ordnung, aus diesem wird es in das Journal getragen, wo alles mehr systematisch steht … Dieses verdient von den Gelehrten nachgeahmt zu werden. Erst ein Buch worin ich alles einschreibe, so wie ich es sehe oder wie es mir meine Gedancken eingeben, alsdann kan dieses wieder in ein anderes getragen werden, wo die Materien mehr abgesondert und geordnet sind. "Tradesmen have their ‘scrapbook’ (scrawl-book, composition book I think in German), in which they enter from day to day everything they buy and sell, everything all mixed up without any order to it, from there it is transferred to the day-book, where everything appears in more systematic fashion … This deserves to be imitated by scholars. First a book where I write down everything as I see it or as my thoughts put it before me, later this can be transcribed into another, where the materials are more distinguished and ordered." and for his discovery of the strange treelike patterns now called Lichtenberg figures.

Life

Lichtenberg was the youngest of seventeen children of pastor Johann Conrad Lichtenberg. His father, ascending through the ranks of the church hierarchy, eventually became superintendent for Darmstadt. Unusually for a clergyman in those times, he seems to have possessed a fair amount of scientific knowledge. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was educated at his parents’ house until ten years of age, when he joined the Lateinschule in Darmstadt. His intelligence and wit became obvious at a very early age. He wanted to study mathematics, but his family could not afford to pay for lessons. In 1762 his mother applied to Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who granted sufficient funds. In 1763, Lichtenberg entered Göttingen University, where in 1769 he became extraordinary professor of physics, and six years later ordinary professor. He held this post till his death.

Lichtenberg became a hunchback owing to a malformation of the spine. This left him unusually short, even by eighteenth-century standards. Over time this malformation grew worse, ultimately affecting even his breathing.

One of the first scientists to introduce experiments with apparatus in their lectures, Lichtenberg was a most popular and respected figure in the European intellectual circles of his time. He maintained good relations with most of the great figures of that era, including Goethe and Kant. In 1784 Alessandro Volta visited Göttingen especially to see the man and his experiments. The eminent mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss sat in on his lectures. In 1793 he was elected a member of the Royal Society.

As a physicist, today he is remembered for his investigations in electricity, for discovering branching discharge patterns on dielectrics now called Lichtenberg figures. In 1777, he built a large electrophorus in order to generate static electricity through induction., p.86 One of the largest ever made, it was 6 feet (2 m) in diameter and could produce 15 inch (38 cm) sparks. With it, he discovered the basic principle of modern Xerography copy machine technology. By discharging a high voltage point near an insulator, he was able to record strange tree-like patterns in fixed dust. These Lichtenberg figures are considered today to be examples of fractals.

He was one of the first to introduce Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod to Germany by installing such devices to his house in Göttingen and his garden sheds. He also proposed the standardized paper size system used all over the world today (except in the US and Canada), known as ISO 216, which has A4 as the most commonly used size.In one of his letters dated 25 October 1786 to Johann Beckmann.