Johan Wilcke

Johan Carl Wilcke ( born September 6, 1732 in Wismar, † April 18, 1796 in Stockholm ) was a German - Swedish physicist.

Life

Wilcke was the eldest son of the pastor of St. Georgen to Wismar, Samuel Wilcke (1704-1773), and those coming from Kolberg merchant's daughter Anna Scheele ( * 1700) was born and baptized on 6 September 1732. 1739 was the father as pastor of the German church in Stockholm, where Johan Carl Wilcke attended the German School. For him, the father plans by which he should also be a theologian had. While studying at the University of Rostock, he met Franz Maria Aepinus, the son of his father's friend, and this fueled the passion Wilckes for the natural sciences, especially physics. As Aepinus 1755 went to Berlin as an astronomer, he took with Wilcke. Both conducted research there on electricity and magnetism and were students of Euler. A work Wilckes from this period was the translation of Benjamin Franklin's letter (s) of electricity. As Aepinus 1757 went to St. Petersburg, Wilcke moved as a lecturer to Stockholm, where he became professor in 1770. However, the pay was very poor. He dared therefore to marry in 1777. His financial situation improved himself until after he in 1784 secretary of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. Since 1774, he was also a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala and since 1775 member of the Royal Physio Graphic Society in Lund.

Wilcke research in the field of the theory of electricity, there specifically to air condensers and Elektrophor and the theory of heat, here to latent and specific heat. He made ​​the discovery of the dielectric polarization of 60 years before Faraday. Since 1766 J. Beckmann reported on an attempt by Johan Carl Wilcke in which these welded together by capacitors discharge Flint balls. Another area of ​​research were the geomagnetic and meteorological phenomena such as thunderstorms, tornadoes and cyclones.