Abraham Gotthelf Kästner

Abraham Gotthelf Kästner (* September 27, 1719 in Leipzig, † June 20, 1800 in Göttingen ) was a German mathematician and Epigrammdichter.

He was the son of Abraham Kästner law professor. In 1756 he married after 12 - year engagement Johanna Rosina Baumann. On March 4, 1758, his wife died of a lung disease. Later Kästner married the widow of a French officer. Whether produced a daughter from this connection is questionable.

Professional career

Kästner studied from 1731 in Leipzig, law, philosophy, physics, mathematics and metaphysics. 1733 he was appointed notary. 1739 and his habilitation at the University of Leipzig, Kästner held mathematical, philosophical and legal lectures. In 1746 he became an associate professor at the University of Leipzig. In 1756 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Natural Philosophy and Geometry to Göttingen. From 1763 he was also head of the local observatory. Kästner was a teacher and later colleague of Lichtenberg and Erxleben. Other students were Johann Pfaff, the doctor father of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Johann Tobias Mayer, the son of his friend and former conductor of the Göttingen observatory Tobias Mayer, and Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes. Kästner was a staunch opponent of animal testing (then vivisection ) and fought against this practice in the strongest terms. He died in 1800 as a Councillor in Göttingen and was buried at St. Bartholomew Cemetery.

The lunar crater Kästner is named after him.

Works

( 6th ed 1800 Göttingen from 1758 to 1769, 4 volumes) emphasize Of his numerous writings on mathematics its rudiments of mathematics. His History of Mathematics (Göttingen from 1796 to 1800, 4 volumes) is described in detail an ingenious work, but it lacks the comprehensive overview of all branches of mathematics.

Best known Kästner was his epigrams, which first appeared without his consent in 1781 in Giessen and brought him through her biting wit and sharp irony on different personalities a lot of criticism. They were later in his Vermischte References 1 and 2 ( Altenburg 1783, 2 volumes) was added and also appeared in his collected poetic and prosaic beautiful scientific works (Berlin 1841, 4 volumes) and later German in Joseph furrier National Literature, Volume 73 (edited by Minor, Stuttgart 1883). Little known is his panegyric on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz Mr. Frey ( Altenburg, 1769).

Mention in Lichtenberg and Kleist

Kästner is often called, and with great respect in Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's Sudelbüchern and letters and quotes, numerous letters Lichtenbergs are addressed to him. Also in Heinrich von Kleist's On the gradual Formulation of Thoughts while talking is Kästner - mentioned - as a known mathematician: "Do not, as if they it to me, in the proper sense, said; for they know neither the Code, nor has it the Euler, or studied the Kästner. "