Jakob Hermann

Jakob Hermann ( * July 16, 1678 in Basel, † July 11, 1733 ) was a Swiss mathematician who worked on problems of classical mechanics.

Life

Jacob Hermann, who was a distant relative of Leonhard Euler, received his education at the beginning of James I. Bernoulli and graduated in 1696. He became in 1701 a member of the Berlin Academy. 1707 he was appointed as professor of mathematics to Padua. 1713 he moved to Frankfurt on the Oder, and from there in 1724 to St. Petersburg. 1731 he returned to Basel to assume the chair of ethics, natural law and international law.

1733, the year he died, Hermann was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences ( Paris).

He seems to have been the first who showed that the Laplace -Runge -Lenz vector is a constant for the movement of particles to which a reverse to the square of the distance -acting central force acts.

The lunar crater Hermann is named after him.