Ferdinand Karl Schweikart (1780–1857) was a German
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and amateur
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
who developed an ''astral geometry'' before the discovery of
non-Euclidean geometry
In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geo ...
.
Life and work
Schweikart, son of an attorney in Hesse, was educated in the school of his town. He went to the high school in
Hanau
Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ...
and
Waldeck before entering in 1796 to study law in the
university of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...
, where he attended lectures of the mathematics professor J.K.F. Hauff. He was awarded a doctorate in law at the
university of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
in 1798.
After practicing as a lawyer for a few years in Erbach, he was, from 1803 to 1807, instructor of the youngest prince of
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen was a German County of the House of Hohenlohe, located in northeastern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, around Ingelfingen. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen was a scion of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. It was raised from a County to a Principality i ...
. From 1809, he was university professor of jurisprudence successively at the universities of
Giessen
Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...
(1809-1812),
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.[Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...]
(1821 afterwards).
[, 1909. Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon.]
But Schweikart is best remembered for his works on mathematics: in 1807 he published
Die Theorie der Parallellinien, nebst dem Vorschlage ihrer Verbannung aus der Geometrie (The theory of parallel lines, along with the suggestions of their banishment from geometry)'. Then, in 1818 he wrote to
Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...
, through his student
Christian Ludwig Gerling
Christian Ludwig Gerling (10 July 1788 – 15 January 1864) studied under Carl Friedrich Gauss, obtaining his doctorate in 1812 for a thesis entitled: ''Methodi proiectionis orthographicae usum ad calculos parallacticos facilitandos explicavit ...
, about a new geometry, called by him as ''astral geometry'', where the sum of the angles of a triangle was less than 180º (as in
hyperbolic geometry
In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai– Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced with:
:For any given line ''R'' and point ''P'' ...
). He influenced the work of his nephew, the mathematician
Franz Taurinus
Franz Adolph Taurinus (15 November 1794 – 13 February 1874) was a Germans, German mathematician who is known for his work on non-Euclidean geometry.
Life
Franz Taurinus was the son of Julius Ephraim Taurinus, a court official of the Count of ...
.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Schweikart, Ferdinand Karl
19th-century German mathematicians
1780 births
1857 deaths