Johann Friedrich Benzenberg (5 May 1777 – 7 June 1846) was a German astronomer, geologist, and physicist.

Biography

Benzenberg was born near

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a doc ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

on 5 May 1777 to Heinrich Benzenberg and Johanna Elisabeth. He married Charlotte Platzhoff in 1807. After studying

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

at Herborn and

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approxima ...

, he travelled to

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

where he became interested in science through attending lectures by

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered for ...

and

Abraham Gotthelf Kästner Abraham Gotthelf Kästner (27 September 1719 – 20 June 1800) was a German mathematician and epigrammatist. He was known in his professional life for writing textbooks and compiling encyclopedias rather than for original research. Georg Chr ...

. Benzenberg obtained a PhD from the

University of Duisburg The old University of Duisburg was a university in Duisburg, Germany. History Its origins date back to the 1555 decision to create a university for the unified duchies at the Lower Rhine that were later to be merged into Prussia. After the foundati ...

in 1800 and became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of mathematics at the women's college of

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

in 1805. After the Napoleonic occupation of Germany he immigrated to Switzerland where he became interested in politics. Benzenberg's interest in politics led him to write extensively on issues such as the constitution of Prussia. In 1844 Benzenberg built a private observatory, the

Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory The Sternwarte Düsseldorf (a.k.a. Sternwarte Bilk, Sternwarte Charlottenruhe; Bilk Observatory or Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory in English) in Düsseldorf-Bilk was a private observatory founded in 1843 by Johann Friedrich Benzenberg. The observat ...

, in Bilk, which he later donated to the city along with a grant to pay for a resident astronomer. In 1798, whilst still a student at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

, Benzenberg and Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes studied the atmospheric altitude of

meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...

s, collecting the first evidence that they were inside the atmosphere. Later, in 1802 and 1804, Benzenberg helped prove the Earth's rotation by conducting experiments originally suggested by

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

; dropping balls from a height.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benzenberg, Johann People from Elberfeld 1777 births 1846 deaths University of Göttingen alumni 19th-century German physicists Scientists from Wuppertal Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities