Maximus von Imhof

Maximus Ritter von Imhof ( born July 26, 1758 in rice Bach, † April 11, 1817 in Munich, born Johann Evangelist Imhof ) was a German Augustinian hermit and naturalist. He was one of the first Bavarian scientists in the period in which the modern concept of science began to develop.

Life

Imhof was born as one of six children of a shoemaker in the Lower Bavarian rice creek. After leaving school in Landshut, he entered the Augustinian Order in 1780 and was ordained a priest in 1782. In Munich monastery he studied from 1786 to 1791 physics, mathematics and philosophy. In 1791 he was appointed to the Philosophical class of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, of which he became president in 1800.

Imhof 1791 was appointed Professor of Physics, Maths and Economics at the Munich Lyceum, where he devoted himself to the natural sciences.

1798 elected him the Munich Augustinian monastery in his Prior 1802, he resigned from the Augustinian order and received a canonry at the Frauenkirche.

1808 was the priest of one of the first Knights of the newly established Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown and was thereby raised to the peerage a personal knight of.

Maximus von Imhof one of the founders of the Munich Oktoberfest.

Add rice Bach ( district of Dingolfing -Landau ), a street bears his name. Similarly, the elementary school in rice creek was named after him. On the campus of the Technical University of Munich in Freising Maximus von Imhof - Forum since October 15, 2009 named on the initiative of the university management for him.

Works

His textbooks of physics and chemistry were pioneering. Mention the written for the Lyceum classes Institutiones Physicae are (1796; transmitted by Johann Georg Prändel 1802 as a guide to natural philosophy into German), as well as the floor plan of public lectures on the experimental natural philosophy in two volumes with over 700 pages ( 1793 to 1795 ). The rudiments of chemistry for the use of public lectures followed in Säkularisationsjahr 1803, published by Joseph Lentner, Munich. This work is one of the first modern chemistry textbooks at all and became the model for subsequent works, as in the 19th century from the pen of Julius A. Stöckhardt (1846 ) and that of WFA Zimmermann ( 1858) became famous.

Other important works are Imhof Theoria electricitatis (Munich, 1790), Institutions Physices (Munich, 1796), Experimental Natural Philosophy (Munich, 1795), First Principles of Chemistry ( Munich, 1802) and Instru about lightning rod (Munich, 1816).

Services

According to the judgment of the botanist Francis of Paula cabinet Imhof has " his own country, partly for long periods of time, and partly made ​​memorable forever " ( Academic obituary ).

Imhof Maximus may be considered due to its wide action as one of the first Bavarian scientist in the modern sense. As for the chemistry, so she turned into Imhof's lifetime from the traditional, theologically worked alchemy to modern science chemistry. Just recorded as Imhof his teaching at the Academy, the French chemist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier published (1743-1794) his new theory of oxidation. This was permanently refuted that there is a " Fire rag ", called phlogiston, but rather that the oxidation is rather based on an intake of oxygen. Not having a weight loss by the escaping phlogiston so, but to gain weight by the absorbed oxygen oxidation process is associated. This basic finding has made the chemistry to science and beat their development whiz your way through. Maximus Imhof also got them a customer, just as he was familiar with the philosophy of Kant. A devout reconnaissance he was then convinced all the more from the fact that God's creations can be detected in a rational way. Throughout his life drove him this conviction. The rudiments of chemistry have a literary witness to the transformation of chemistry for science: Imhof describes, explains and gives how to create glass or lead contamination can track the beer instructions.

In the whole of Bavaria known Imhof was through his efforts to spread the lightning rod. According to the company not less than 1038 lightning rods were placed in Bavaria 1795-1816 after his concept. Imhof improvement was that he, the invention of Benjamin Franklin (1752 ) instead of iron rods constructed of woven brass wire. Hereby he lived his belief that "the sciences only receive their full value when they are calculated on the welfare of our fellow human beings " ( Academy speech, 1811). His writings include over shooting against roving thunder and hail (1811 ) as well as theoretical and practical instruction for planting and maintenance expediently lightning rod (1816 ).