Johann Tobias Mayer

Johann Tobias Mayer ( born May 5, 1752 Göttingen, † November 30, 1830 ) was a German physicist. He was primarily known for his textbooks in mathematics and natural philosophy. His father was the astronomer Tobias Mayer.

Life

Johann Tobias Mayer was born as the first child of Tobias Mayer (1723-1762) and Mary Victoria, born Gnüge (1723-1780) in Göttingen. When Johann Tobias was ten years old, his father died, the then already known Göttingen professor of geography, physics and astronomy. 1769 Johann Tobias Mayer began the study of theology and philosophy at the fledgling University of Göttingen in Christian Meister ( lawyer) and Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, and later with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. After receiving his doctorate and habilitation in 1773 Mayer lectured in mathematics and led by observations on the old Göttingen Observatory. On November 17, 1779, he was appointed to the University of Altdorf, where he worked from 1780 to 1786. He then taught mathematics and physics at the former University of Erlangen. In 1799 he was Lichtenberg's successor in the professorship of physics at the University of Göttingen. His students included Enno Heeren Dirksen, who earned his doctorate at him in 1820. In 1780, Mayer had Johanna Friederike Juliane, born end ( 1754-1822 ), the daughter of a Prussian major, married, with whom he had five children. Mayer died in 1830 in Göttingen.

Work

Johann Tobias Mayer is best known for his textbooks in mathematics and natural philosophy. The rudiments of natural science for the sake of lectures on experimental physics published since 1801 in Göttingen. This textbook was the most influential of his time in the German-speaking and experienced it until 1827 a total of six runs. But Mayer also ran his own research, for example, in experimental physics, and astronomy. To this end, he published essays in Grens and Gilberts Journal of physics.