Georg Simon Klügel (August 19, 1739 – August 4, 1812) was a German

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

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 was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, and in 1760 went to the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

where he initially studied theology before switching to mathematics.

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

was a fellow student. His doctoral thesis ''Conatuum praecipuorum theoriam parallelarum demonstrandi recensio'', published in 1763 with

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 ...

as doctoral advisor, was a study of 30 attempted proofs of the

parallel postulate In geometry, the parallel postulate is the fifth postulate in Euclid's ''Elements'' and a distinctive axiom in Euclidean geometry. It states that, in two-dimensional geometry: If a line segment intersects two straight lines forming two interior ...

. It was influential at the time and much cited. Klügel edited the ''Hannöversche Magazin'' for 2 years from 1766, before becoming professor of mathematics at the

University of Helmstedt The University of Helmstedt (; official Latin name: ''Academia Julia'', "Julius University") was a university in Helmstedt in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel that existed from 1576 until 1810. History Founded by and named after Duke Juli ...

. In 1788 he succeeded Wenzeslaus Johann Gustav Karsten to the chair of mathematics and physics at the

University of Halle Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

. He died in Halle in 1812. He remained in correspondence with

Lichtenberg Lichtenberg may refer to: Places * Lichtenberg, Austria * Lichtenberg, Bas-Rhin, France * Lichtenberg, Bavaria, Germany * Lichtenberg, Berlin, Germany * Lichtenberg, Mittelsachsen, Saxony, Germany * Lichtenberg (Lausitz), Saxony, Germany * Lichte ...

throughout his career. Klügel made an exceptional contribution to trigonometry, unifying formulae and introducing the concept of trigonometric function, (including coining the term) in his Analytische Trigonometrie 1770.

Publications

* ''Conatuum praecipuorum theoriam parallelarum demonstrandi recensio''
Dissertation
1760; *''Encyklopädie der gemeinnützigsten Kenntnisse'' ("Encyclopedia of Common Knowledge") (Berlin 1782-1806, 3 volumes); *''Anfangsgründe der Arithmetik'' (Berlin 1793, 6th edition 1819); *''Die gemeinnützigsten Vernunftkenntnisse'' (2nd edition Leipzig 1791).

Notes

External links

Literatur von und über Georg Simon Klügel
in the

Göttingen State and University Library The Göttingen State and University Library ( or SUB Göttingen) is the library for Göttingen University as well as for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state library for the German State of Lower Saxony. One of the largest German ...

(German) * 18th-century German mathematicians 19th-century German mathematicians 1739 births 1812 deaths Scientists from Hamburg {{Germany-mathematician-stub