Georg Christoph Lichtenberg facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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| Born | 1 July 1742 Ober-Ramstadt near Darmstadt, Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, Holy Roman Empire
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| Died | 24 February 1799 (aged 56) |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen (1763–67) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Scientist, satirist and aphorist |
| Doctoral advisor | Abraham Gotthelf Kästner |
| Doctoral students | Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes Johann Tobias Mayer Ernst Chladni |
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (born July 1, 1742 – died February 24, 1799) was a German physicist and a clever writer known for his jokes and sharp comments. He was also an Anglophile, meaning he loved England and its culture.
As a scientist, he was the very first professor in Germany to teach experimental physics. This means he taught physics by doing actual experiments. He is also famous for his special notebooks. He called them sudelbücher, which means "waste books" or "scrapbooks." These notebooks were full of his thoughts and ideas. Lichtenberg also discovered cool, tree-like electrical patterns. Today, these patterns are called Lichtenberg figures.
Contents
Life and Education
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born in Ober-Ramstadt, a town near Darmstadt, Germany. He was the youngest of 17 children! His father, Johann Conrad Lichtenberg, was a pastor (a church leader). He was also quite knowledgeable about science, which was unusual for a clergyman back then.
Lichtenberg was homeschooled until he was 10. Then, he went to the Lateinschule (a type of high school) in Darmstadt. Everyone could see how smart he was from a young age. He really wanted to study mathematics. However, his family didn't have enough money for his lessons. In 1762, his mother asked Ludwig VIII, the local ruler, for help. Ludwig VIII gave them enough money. So, in 1763, Lichtenberg started studying at the University of Göttingen.
Becoming a Professor
In 1769, Lichtenberg became a special professor of physics. Six years later, he became a full professor. He kept this job until he passed away. His students invited him to visit England twice. He went in 1770 and again from 1774 to 1775.
In England, he was warmly welcomed by King George III and Queen Charlotte. He even showed the King around the royal observatory in Richmond. The King was so impressed that he suggested Lichtenberg become a professor of philosophy! Lichtenberg also met people who had traveled with Captain Cook. He loved Great Britain very much and became a well-known Anglophile.
His Scientific Connections
Lichtenberg was one of the first scientists to use experiments in his lectures. He was very popular and respected among thinkers in Europe. He was also one of the first to bring Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod to Germany. He even put lightning rods on his own house and garden sheds.
He knew many important people of his time. These included famous writers like Goethe and thinkers like Immanuel Kant. In 1784, Alessandro Volta, who invented the battery, visited Göttingen just to see Lichtenberg and his experiments. The famous mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss also attended his lectures. In 1793, Lichtenberg was chosen to be a member of the important Royal Society in London.
Health and Personal Life
When Lichtenberg was a child, he had a fall. This caused his spine to become malformed, making him a hunchback. He was unusually short, even for his time. As he got older, his spine problem got worse, which made it hard for him to breathe.
In 1777, he met Maria Stechard, who was 13 years old. She moved in with him in 1780 but sadly passed away in 1782. Their story was later turned into a novel.
The next year, in 1783, Lichtenberg met Margarethe Kellner. He married her in 1789. He thought he would die soon and wanted to make sure she would receive money (a pension) after he was gone. They had six children together. Margarethe lived for 49 years after Lichtenberg passed away.
Lichtenberg died in Göttingen in 1799. He was 56 years old and had been sick for a short time.
His Famous Scrapbooks
Lichtenberg's "scrapbooks" are very special notebooks. He kept them from his student days until he died. They are like personal diaries or commonplace books. Each notebook was given a letter, from A (started in 1765) to L (which he was writing in when he died in 1799).
These notebooks became known to the world after Lichtenberg's death. His sons and brothers published parts of them. Sadly, some notebooks (G, H, and most of K) were lost or destroyed later. People think these missing parts might have contained very private information. The notebooks that are left are kept safe at Göttingen University.
The scrapbooks contain many things. They have quotes that Lichtenberg liked, lists of books he wanted to read, and short stories about his own life. They also have his thoughts and observations about human nature. These clever thoughts helped him become famous after his death as one of the best aphorists (someone who writes short, wise sayings) in Western history.
These scrapbooks show how Lichtenberg thought critically and analyzed things. He believed strongly in using experiments to prove ideas in physics. This made him one of the early supporters of modern scientific methods. He also had a very sharp sense of humor.
Many famous thinkers admired Lichtenberg's notebooks. These include Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Even Leo Tolstoy wondered why Germans today don't read Lichtenberg more often.
Other Important Works
Lichtenberg was a top satirist in Germany during the 1700s. A satirist uses humor, irony, or exaggeration to criticize people's mistakes or foolishness. His sharp wit often led to arguments with other famous people. For example, he made fun of a Swiss scientist named Johann Kaspar Lavater and his ideas about reading people's character from their faces.
In 1777, Lichtenberg spoke out against a man named Jacob Philadelphia. Philadelphia claimed to be a physicist but Lichtenberg thought he was just a magician. Lichtenberg made a funny, satirical poster to stop Philadelphia from performing in Göttingen. The poster, called “Lichtenberg's Avertissement,” described impossible, magical tricks. Because of this, Philadelphia left the city without performing.
Lichtenberg also wrote Briefe aus England (Letters from England). These letters had wonderful descriptions of the actor David Garrick. These were some of his most popular writings published during his lifetime.
From 1778, Lichtenberg published the Göttinger Taschen Calender (Göttingen Pocket Calendar). He also helped edit the Göttingisches Magazin der Wissenschaften und Literatur (Göttingen Magazine of Sciences and Literature) for three years. The calendar was more than just a regular calendar. It had short articles about science and new discoveries. It also included essays where he argued against fake science and superstitions. He wanted to teach people to use logic and their own senses, which was a big idea during the Age of Enlightenment.
In 1784, he took over publishing a physics textbook called Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre (Foundations of the Natural Sciences). This book was written by his friend Johann Christian Erxleben, who died young. Lichtenberg published three more editions of this book, and it became the standard physics textbook in German for many years.
From 1794 to 1799, he published a detailed explanation of William Hogarth's prints. Hogarth was a famous artist known for his satirical pictures.
Lichtenberg's Legacy
As a physicist, Lichtenberg is remembered for his work with electricity. He discovered the branching patterns that appear on special materials when electricity goes through them. These are now called Lichtenberg figures. In 1777, he built a very large machine called an electrophorus. It was 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) wide and could make sparks 38 centimeters (about 15 inches) long!
With this machine, he discovered a basic idea behind modern xerography (copy machine) technology. He found that if he sent a high voltage spark near an insulator (a material that doesn't conduct electricity well), he could record strange, tree-like patterns in dust. These Lichtenberg figures are now seen as early examples of fractals, which are complex patterns that repeat themselves at different scales.
A crater on the Moon is named Lichtenberg in his honor. His life and works have also been used in novels.
He also suggested the standardized paper size system that is used around the world today, like A4 paper. This system is defined by ISO 216.
Images for kids
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Lichtenberg's monument at the marketplace in Göttingen
See also
In Spanish: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg para niños
