Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger (8 April 1779 – 6 September 1857) was a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, and

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". Professo ...

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 ...

born in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inha ...

. J.S.C.Schweigger was the son of Friedrich Christian Lorenz Schweigger, professor of theologie in Erlangen (1786 until his death in 1802). He studied philosophy in Erlangen. His PhD involved the

Homeric Question The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the '' Iliad'' and '' Odyssey'', and their historicity (especially concerning the ''Iliad''). The subject has its roots in classical ...

revived at that time by

Friedrich August Wolf Friedrich August Wolf (; 15 February 1759 – 8 August 1824) was a German classicist and is considered the founder of modern philology. Biography He was born in Hainrode, near Nordhausen. His father was the village schoolmaster and organi ...

. Johann Tobias Mayer, Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt and

Karl Christian von Langsdorf Karl Christian von Langsdorf, also known as Carl Christian von Langsdorff (18 May 1757 in Nauheim – 10 June 1834 in Heidelberg), was a German mathematician, geologist, natural scientist and engineer. Life Langsdorf was the son of Georg Melchi ...

convinced him to switch to physics and chemistry and he lectured on this subjects in Erlangen until 1803 before taking a position as schoolteacher in

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital o ...

and in 1811 in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. During 1816-1819 he was appointed professor of philosophy in Erlangen teaching physics and chemistry. 1816 he was elected member of the Leopoldina. 1819 he moved on to the university of

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hal ...

. In 1820 he built the first sensitive

galvanometer A galvanometer is an electromechanical measuring instrument for electric current. Early galvanometers were uncalibrated, but improved versions, called ammeters, were calibrated and could measure the flow of current more precisely. A galvan ...

, naming it after

Luigi Galvani Luigi Galvani (, also ; ; la, Aloysius Galvanus; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher, who studied animal electricity. In 1780, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs ...

. He created this instrument, acceptable for actual measurement as well as detection of small amounts of electric current, by wrapping a coil of wire around a graduated compass. The instrument was initially called a multiplier. He is the father of

Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger (28 October 1830 – 24 August 1905) was a German ophthalmologist who was a native of Halle an der Saale. He was the son of scientist Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger (1779–1857), inventor of an early galvano ...

and adopted one of his students Franz Wilhelm Schweigger-Seidel as his own son.

Written works

* ''Einleitung in die Mythologie auf dem Standpunkte der Naturwissenschaft'', Halle (1836) - Introduction to mythology, from the standpoint of

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

. * ''Über naturwissenschaftliche Mysterien in ihrem Verhältnis zur Litteratur des Altertums'', Halle (1843) - Involving scientific mysteries in their relation to the literature of antiquity. * ''Über das Elektron der Alten'', Greifswald (1848) - On the

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...

of the past. * ''Über die stöchiometrischen Reihen'', Halle (1853) - On the

stoichiometry Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equ ...

series.Publications copied from an equivalent article at the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedi ...

References

J. S. C. Schweigger: His Romanticism and His Crystal Electrical Theory of Matter
by H. A. M. Snelders (1971)

External links

* * (German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Schweigger, Johann Salomo Christoph 1779 births 1857 deaths 19th-century German chemists 19th-century German inventors 19th-century German physicists People from Erlangen People from the Principality of Bayreuth University of Erlangen-Nuremberg alumni Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg faculty 19th-century German mathematicians