Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus (13 December 172410 August 1802) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

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 ...

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

, and

natural philosopher Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...

residing in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. Aepinus is best known for his researches, theoretical and experimental, in

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

and

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...

Early life

He was born at

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...

in the

Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin The Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1701, when Frederick William and Adolphus Frederick II divided the Duchy of Mecklenburg between Schwerin and Strelitz. Ruled by the successors of the Nikloting Hous ...

. He was descended from

Johannes Aepinus Johannes Aepinus (Johann Hoeck) (1499–1553) was a German Lutheran theologian, the first Superintendent of Hamburg from 1532 to 1553, presiding as spiritual leader over the Lutheran state church of Hamburg. Life He was born at Ziesar or Zieges ...

(1499–1553), the first to adopt the Greek form (αἰπεινός) of the family name Hugk or Huck, and a leading theologian and controversialist at the time of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

Career

After studying

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

for a time, Franz Aepinus devoted himself to the physical and mathematical sciences, in which he soon gained such distinction that he was admitted a member of the

Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (german: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin ...

. In 1755, he was briefly the director of the

Astronomisches Rechen-Institut The Astronomical Calculation Institute (german: Astronomisches Rechen-Institut; ARI) is a research institute in Heidelberg, Germany, dating from the 1700s. Beginning in 2005, the ARI became part of the Center for Astronomy at Heidelberg Univers ...

. In 1757, he settled in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

as member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

and professor of physics, and remained there till his retirement in 1798. The rest of his life was spent at

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern Europe, Northern Europe, European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres ...

. He enjoyed the favor of Empress

Catherine II of Russia , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

, who appointed him tutor to her son

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, and endeavoured, without success, to establish normal schools throughout the empire under his direction. In 1761, Aepinus was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

. In 1764, he was appointed as a head of the cryptographic service of Russia, and held this position till 1797, during 33 years.

Works

His principal work, ''Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi'' (An Attempt at a Theory of Electricity and Magnetism), published at St. Petersburg in 1759, was the first systematic attempt to apply mathematical reasoning to these subjects. He also published a treatise, in 1761, ''De Distributione Caloris per Tellurem'' (On the Distribution of Heat in the Earth), and he was the author of memoirs on different subjects in

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects r ...

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

and pure

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, contained in the journals of the learned societies of

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. His discussion of the effects of

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

in the transit of a planet over the sun's disc excited great interest, having appeared (in 1764) between the dates of the two transits of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

that took place in the 18th century.

Electrical theories

Aepinus and

Henry Cavendish Henry Cavendish ( ; 10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was an English natural philosopher and scientist who was an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "infl ...

devised theories of electricity which were essentially the same, yet had been framed without any communication between these two philosophers. Aepinus however published his theory about ten years before that of Cavendish. These are essentially modern theories which eventually put to rest the idea of two fluids. Their theories said that * ''... the electric fluid is a substance, the particles of which repel each other, and attract the particles of all other matter, with a force inversely as the square of distance.''

he square law was added later He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

* ''The particles of all other matter also repel each other, and attract those of the electric fluid with a force varying according to the same law. Or, if we consider the electric fluid as matter different from all other matter, the particles of all matter, both those of the electric fluid, and of other matter, repel particles of the same kind, and attract those of a contrary kind, with a force inversely as the square of the distance.'' Cavendish and Aepinus believed that the electric fluid was * ''another sort of matter. ... Its weight in any body probably bears a very small proportion to the weight of the matter in the body, but yet the force with which the electric fluid in any body attracts any particle of matter in that body, must be equal to the force with which the matter of the body repels that particle, otherwise the body would appear electrical, as will afterwards appear.'' In effect, they are imagining the 'electric fluid' as consisting of electrons with almost no mass, but still with substantial electrical attractive and repulsive power. Static electricity then becomes a matter of a superabundance of electrons in one body, and a shortage of electrons in another.

References

External links

* Electricity entry i
Edinburgh Encyclopaedia
of 1832 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aepinus, Franz 1724 births 1802 deaths Burials at Raadi cemetery People from Rostock People from the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Natural philosophers 18th-century German scientists 18th-century German mathematicians Scientists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania German emigrants to the Russian Empire Scientists from the Russian Empire Inventors from the Russian Empire 18th-century German inventors Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences University of Jena alumni University of Rostock alumni Saint Petersburg State University faculty Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities