- Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes
Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes (
July 27 ,1777 –May 17 ,1834 ) was a German physicist,meteorologist , and astronomer.Brandes was born in 1777 in Groden (a former
exclave ofHamburg , todayCuxhaven ), the third son of Albert Georg Brandes, a preacher. He studied at theUniversity of Göttingen from 1796 to 1798 underAbraham Gotthelf Kästner andGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg .Carl Friedrich Gauss was a fellow student, He attained his doctorate in 1800, and spent a short time teaching privately.From 1801 to 1811 he was at first a technical designer of dykes on the
Weser river atEckwarden ,Butjadingen , in theDuchy of Oldenburg , and later a dyke inspector for the lower right bank of the Weser.In 1811 he became a professor of mathematics at the newly created
University of Breslau , a merger of twoWrocław colleges. In 1826 he gained the chair of physics at theUniversity of Leipzig .He had a very wide range of activities. He wrote a considerable number of mathematics textbooks. In 1820 he published the first
weather chart s in "Beiträgen zur Witterungskunde" ("Contributions to Meteorology"). Thus he is considered to be a founder ofsynoptic meteorology . In 1824 he developed a new method to compute the Euler constant numerically. He died on May 17, 1834 inLeipzig .Publications
*"Versuche, die Entfernung, die Geschwindigkeit und die Bahnen der Sternschnuppen zu bestimmen" ("Attempts to determine the distance, speed and course of meteors") (with
Johann Friedrich Benzenberg ; 1800)
*"Die vornehmsten Lehren der Astronomie in Briefen an eine Freundin dargestellt" ("Major theories of astronomy, described in letters to a friend") (4 vols, 1811-16)
*"Untersuchungen über den mittleren Gang der Wärmeänderungen durchs ganze Jahr; über gleichzeitige Witterungs – Ereignisse in weit voneinander entfernten Weltgegenden; über die Formen der Wolken, die Entstehung des Regens und der Stürme; und über andere Gegenstände der Witterungskunde" ("Meteorology") (Leipzig: Barth, 1820)
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