Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller (30 April 1809,

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

Kingdom of Westphalia The Kingdom of Westphalia was a client state of First French Empire, France in present-day Germany that existed from 1807 to 1813. While formally independent, it was ruled by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte. It was named after Westphalia, ...

– 3 October 1875,

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

) 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 ...

Biography

From 1829 he studied mathematics and physics at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

, where one of his instructors was

Julius Plücker Julius Plücker (16 June 1801 – 22 May 1868) was a German mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions to the field of analytical geometry and was a pioneer in the investigations of cathode rays that led eventually to the di ...

, then continued his education at the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the German-speaking world. It is named afte ...

as a student of

Justus von Liebig Justus ''Freiherr'' von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a Germans, German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biology, biological chemistry; he is ...

. In 1834 he became a teacher at the

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

gymnasium, and in 1837 returned to Giessen as an instructor at the ''Realschule''. In 1844 he was appointed professor of physics and technology at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

, a position he maintained up until his death in 1875.Müller, Johann Heinrich
Deutsche Biographie He conducted research on

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

galvanism Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action. The term also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake, Luigi Galvani, specifi ...

and

magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, ...

, as well as studies of light and

heat radiation Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted by the thermal motion of particles in matter. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. The emission of energy arises from a combination of electro ...

. Beginning in 1846 he performed analysis of

Fraunhofer lines The Fraunhofer lines are a set of spectral absorption lines. They are dark absorption lines, seen in the optical spectrum of the Sun, and are formed when atoms in the solar atmosphere absorb light being emitted by the solar photosphere. The l ...

Works

His principal work, "''Lehrbuch der Physik und Meteorologie''" (2 volumes, Braunschweig, 1842; 7th edition, 1868–69), was originally a version of

Claude Pouillet Claude Servais Mathias Pouillet (16 February 1790 – 14 June 1868) was a French physicist and a professor of physics at the Sorbonne and member of the French Academy of Sciences (elected 1837). Biography He studied sciences at the École ...

's "''Éléments de physique expérimentale et de météorologie''"; and he published a supplement to it, "''Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik''" (1856; 3rd edition, 1872).Johann Heinrich Jacob Müller
de.Wikisource Later on, Leopold Pfaundler published an enlarged 9th edition, titled "''Müller-Pouillet's Lehrbuch der physik und meteorologie''" (1886–98, 3 volumes). Among his other works are: * ''Grundriss der Physik und Meteorologie'' (1846; 10th edition, 1869–70; with two supplements); later translated in English and published as "Principles of Physics and Meteorology" (Hippolyte Bailliere, London 1847; Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia 1848).Principles of physics and meteorology
OCLC WorldCat * ''Grundzüge der Krystallographie'' (1845; 2nd edition, 1869). * ''Anfangsgründe der geometrischen Disciplin für Gymnasien'', &c. (3rd edition, 1869).

References

* 1809 births 1875 deaths Scientists from Kassel People from the Kingdom of Westphalia 19th-century German physicists Academic staff of the University of Freiburg {{Germany-physicist-stub