Eugen von Lommel 1900 Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung

Eugen Cornelius Joseph von Lommel (19 March 1837,

Edenkoben Edenkoben () is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It lies approximately halfway between Landau and Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Edenkoben is one of the towns situated along the German Wine R ...

– 19 June 1899,

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

) was a German

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 ...

. He is notable for the Lommel polynomial, the

Lommel function Lommel () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city in the Belgium, Belgian province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg. Lying in the Campine, Kempen, it has about 34,000 inhabitants and is part of the arrondissement ...

, the Lommel–Weber function, and the Lommel differential equation. He is also notable as the doctoral advisor of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winner

Johannes Stark Johannes Stark (; 15 April 1874 – 21 June 1957) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919 "for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields". This phenom ...

. Lommel was born in

in the Palatinate,

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

. He studied mathematics and physics at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

between 1854 and 1858. From 1860 to 1865 he is teacher of physics and chemistry at the canton school of

Schwyz Schwyz (; ; ) is a town and the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. The Federal Charter of 1291 or ''Bundesbrief'', the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the ''Bundesbriefmuseum''. The of ...

. From 1865 to 1867 he taught at the high school in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

and was simultaneously

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

at the

local university Local colleges and universities (LCUs) are higher educational institutions that are being run by Administrative divisions of the Philippines, local government units in the Philippines. A local government unit (LGU) maybe a barangay, a municipalit ...

as well as at the polytechnic school. From 1867 to 1868, he was appointed professor of physics at the

University of Hohenheim A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. Finally he was appointed to a chair of experimental physics at

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

in 1868 and then went to the University of Munich in 1886, where he died in 1899.

Works by Lommel

* ''Studien über die Besselschen Funktionen,'' (Leipzig 1868) * ''Wind und Wetter,'' München (1873) * ''Das Wesen des Lichts,'' Leipzig (1874) * ''Über die Interferenz des gebeugten Lichts,'' Erlangen (1874–76) * ''Lexikon der Physik und Meteorologie,'' Leipzig (1882) * ''Die Beugungserscheinungen geradlinig begrenzter Schirme,'' München (1886) * ''Die Beugungsrescheinungen einer kreisrunden Öffnung,'' München (1884) * ''Lehrbuch der Experimentalphysik,'' Leipzig (8. A. 1902)

External links

References

* Robert Knott: Lommel, Eugen. In: ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB).'' Band 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, S. 62–65. 1837 births 1899 deaths People from Edenkoben 19th-century German physicists People from the Palatinate (region) Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Academic staff of ETH Zurich Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg {{Germany-academic-bio-stub