Johan Wilcke facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Johan Wilcke
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| Born |
Johan Carl Wilcke
6 September 1732 |
| Died | 18 April 1796 (aged 63) |
| Nationality | Swedish |
| Occupation | Physicist |
Johan Carl Wilcke (born September 6, 1732, died April 18, 1796) was an important Swedish physicist. A physicist is a scientist who studies how the world works, especially focusing on energy and matter.
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About Johan Wilcke
Wilcke was born in Wismar, a city in Germany. His father was a clergyman, a type of religious leader. In 1739, his family moved to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. There, his father became a pastor at the German Church.
Johan went to the German school in Stockholm. Later, in 1749, he started studying at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. From 1751, he traveled to other countries to learn more. In 1757, he earned a special degree called "magister" from the University of Rostock. He wrote a paper about different types of electricity for this degree.
His Work in Physics
In 1759, Johan Wilcke became the first "Thamian lecturer" of experimental physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. This was a new job created by a rich merchant named Sebastian Tham. Experimental physics means doing tests and experiments to understand how things work. Wilcke also became a member of this important academy.
He became a full professor in 1770. Later, in 1784, he became the permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences. This was a very important leadership role. He passed away in Stockholm in 1796.
Key Discoveries and Inventions
Wilcke did very important research in two main areas: electricity and caloric theory. Caloric theory was an early idea about heat.
Electricity Research
In 1762, Wilcke invented a machine that could create static electricity. It was an early version of a device called the electrophorus. This device was later made famous by another scientist, Alessandro Volta, in 1775. The electrophorus could produce electric charges again and again.
Heat Research
Wilcke also studied heat. In 1772, he calculated the latent heat of ice. Latent heat is the energy needed to change ice into water without changing its temperature. Think of it as the hidden heat that melts ice.
In 1781, he came up with the idea and the name "specific heat." This is a very important concept in physics. Specific heat tells us how much energy is needed to raise the temperature of a certain amount of a substance. He thought of this idea because it was similar to "specific gravity," which compares how heavy a substance is to water.
In 1789, Johan Wilcke was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very respected group of scientists in London, England.
