Holy Roman Empire / Germany: Notable Scientists, Mathematicians, Inventors, Explorers, and Cartographers

Organized chronologically by death date / date of publication

1200 - 1285 - St. Albertus Magnus (All Facts)

• German Scientist and Encyclopedist

• He classified plants by their structures

1366 - 1405 - Conrad Keyser (All Facts)

• German Military Engineer

1405 - Conrad Keyser: Bellifortis (All Facts)

• Technical treatise on military engineering and ballistics, the most famous of those which abounded in Germany in the (early) 1400s

1393 - 1406 - Johannes Gutenberg (All Facts)

• German Inventor and Craftsman

  • He was from Mainz

• He invented the movable-type printing press / movable printing characters, which

  • enabled a much faster rate of printing compared to its preexisting East Asian (Korean) counterpart

  • while the use of a press for printing was not new, he made it so that making type did not have to involve laborious hours of carving from wood and handwriting bibles

  • spread across the world, having led to an information revolution and the unprecedented mass-spread of literature throughout Europe, with a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, and humanist movements

  • allowed accurate texts to be produced in great numbers

• His many contributions to printing include the

  • mechanical movable type and method of printing, based on the presses already in use for wine and paper-making, and used a revolutionary system of producing metal type-faces

    • it is possible that he designed his press along the lines of wine and linen presses

  • invention of a process for mass-producing movable type, in which the printer made type by pouring molten metal into punch-stamped molds, providing a limitless supply of letters

    • letters were cast in type metal, composed into sentences on a type stick, and set up as pages of type before being inked for the press

  • use of oil-based ink for printing books

  • invention of a wooden printing press similar to the agricultural screw presses of the period

• His first publication was a Bible with 42 lines on each page printed in a type-face (script) called “Gothic” (printed in Mainz)

  • His system was used for publishing bibles as well as religious tracts

  • His books were the first to be printed using his own method

  • However, no printed work bearing his name exists

• He ran into major financial difficulties during his invention process, having been

  • forced to borrow money heavily, particularly from a rich goldsmith and financier in his day named Johann Fust, who became increasingly impatient with the namesake and sued the namesake for the return of his 800 guilders

    • the courts found for Fust and it is he who made the fortune of sales from the printed Bibles and it was Fust’s Book of Psalms, based on the namesake system, who profited

• He also worked on a copper-based system of reproducing etchings on a mass basis

• He lived in Strasbourg for awhile

• He died in obscurity

1436 - 1476 - Regiomontanus (All Facts)

• German Astronomer

• He revised tables for navigation

1460 - 1498 - Johann Widmann (All Facts)

• German Mathematician

• In a book he published, he introduced the “+” and “-” signs to denote the operations of addition and subtraction, respectively

  • In doing so, he had not only advanced the operational symbolism of Diophantus, the great Greek mathematician, and Hindu scholars; but he greatly simplified matters for fellow mathematicians

  • This simplified the variety of signs and symbols employed rather idiosyncratically that denoted adding, subtracting, and other operations; which often took the form of abbreviated words

1459 - 1507 - Martin Behaim (All Facts)

• German Inventor, Cartographer, and Explorer

  • He was born in Lisbon

  • He was born into a family of merchants

• He invented the first known globe, called the “Erdapfel”

  • He constructed it during a visit to Nuremberg

  • He drew the outlines of the continents in color on a surface of fine parchment

  • He extensively copied from other maps

  • His completed work summarized the geographical knowledge of his time

• He spent most of his adult life in Portugal and the Azores Islands

  • He served King John II of Portugal as an explorer

  • He kept company with all the explorers who came his way

  • He claimed to have accompanied Diego Cao on his expedition to Africa

  • He was captured by English pirates one time, and was held prisoner for several years before being allowed to return to Portugal

1482 - 1511 - Matthias Ringmann (All Facts)

• German Cartographer

• He made the Universalis Cosmographia (Universal Cosmography) Map along with Martin Waldseemüller, which was the first map to have depicted the New World to be a distinct continent between Europe and Asia

  • They named America after Amerigo Vespucci, having accepted Vespucci’s dubious version of events of his discovery of the continent

  • The irony of this map was that Vespucci was given the principal credit for the discovery of America to a man whose principal talent seems to have been as a self-publicist

1470 - 1520 - Martin Waldseemüller (All Facts)

• German Cartographer

• He made the Universalis Cosmographia (Universal Cosmography) Map along with Martin Waldseemüller, which was the first map to have depicted the New World to be a distinct continent between Europe and Asia

  • They named America after Amerigo Vespucci, having accepted Vespucci’s dubious version of events of his discovery of the continent

  • The irony of this map was that Vespucci was given the principal credit for the discovery of America to a man whose principal talent seems to have been as a self-publicist

1466 - 1541 - Johann Faust (All Facts)

• German Physician, Astrologist, and Magician

• He died unexpectedly at Breisgau

  • It was rumored that his strange disappearance was the work of the Devil

• His name lends itself to a term used to describe the phenomenon in which one gives up their soul in exchange for something from the Devil

1485 - 1542 - Peter Heinlen (All Facts)

• German Inventor, Locksmith, Clockmaker and Watchmaker

  • He was from Nuremberg

• He invented the pocket-watch

  • He invented the timepiece that could be carried in the hand, the first being about four inches in diameter and three inches in depth

  • This invention was made possible by another innovation, the coiled mainspring, which he also seemed to have invent

  • At its first invention it was not without its faults, the most serious at the time being that force of the coiled mainspring inside was greater when it was fully wound, making time vary

• He invented the coiled mainspring (allegedly)

  • This was stressed when coiled

  • When it is wound up, it stores energy in the curved metal

  • As the coil unwinds, this energy is transmitted to an oscillating section of a watch by means of a mechanism called a verge escapement, a notched gear wheel shaped like a crown, to produce a regular pulse

  • He invented this spring which replaced the weights in a clock

• He died at Nuremberg

1505 - 1546 - Philip von Hutten (All Facts)

• German Explorer and Adventurer

• He went on an expedition to South America, where he was murdered by the Spanish at Coro

1494 - 1555 - Georgius Agricola / Georg Bauer (All Facts)

• German Mineralogist and Metallurgist

1530 - Georgius Agricola / Georg Bauer: On the Nature of Metals / “De Re Metallica” (All Facts)

• Work of major importance in the field of mineralogy and mining techniques

• Work which was published in Silesia

1572 - 1625 - Johann Bayer (All Facts)

• German Astronomer and Celestial Cartographer (Constellation Coiner)

1603 - Johann Bayer: Uranometria (All Facts)

• Astronomical atlas consisting of over 12 mapped out southern constellations intended as a popular guide to the heavens

• Atlas whose key feature is the way it maps the stars without relying on verbal descriptions of their locations, grouping stars according to their luminosity, with each type of star being assigned a Greek letter and the brightest being designated as “alpha” stars

• Work which was greeted with so much acclaim that Augsburg’s (the city in which it was published) city council decided to reward the namesake author with a 150-gulden honorarium

1571 - 1630 - Johannes Kepler (All Facts)

• German Astronomer and Astrologer

• He is most famous and well-known for his three laws of planetary motion, the laws that govern the paths of planets around the sun

• He

  • started studying theology, but switched to mathematics

  • taught mathematics at the University of Graz (in Austria)

  • worked as an assistant for Tycho Brahe

  • was court astronomer for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II

• He

  • was an enthusiastic astronomer who spent many hours observing stars and comets, writing up in immense detail his results and theories

  • applied the principles of geometry to the movements of the planets, in particular Mars

1596 - Johannes Kepler: Cosmographical Mystery (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author argues that there is a geometrical relationship between the distances of the planets from the sun which can be expressed numerically

1609 - Johannes Kepler: New Astronomy / “Astronomia Nova” (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author provides evidence for the elliptical rotation of the planets around the sun

1619 - Johannes Kepler: The Harmony of the World / “Harmonices Mundi” (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author demonstrates the truth of the Copernican view of the universe

1592 - 1635 - Wilhelm Schickard (All Facts)

• German Inventor

• He invented the first calculator

  • He constructed an ingenious piece of wooden machinery capable of adding and subtracting automatically

  • His calculating machine could also perform multiplication and division, albeit partly manually

  • His device had profound repercussions as human calculators who get tired and need to check their results looked forward to using the invention

  • His device eventually replaced the abacus and William Oughtred’s “slide-rule” which was popular in the namesake’s day

  • His device revolutionized mathematics

1573 - 1650 - Christoph Scheiner (All Facts)

• German Astronomer

  • He was also a Jesuit Priest

• He s most famous and well-known for his observations on sunspots

1630 - Christoph Scheiner: Rosa Ursina (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author

  • explains the apparent deformation of the sun when it sets

  • demonstrates that the sun turns on its axis

1591 - 1666 - Johann Adam Schall von Bell (All Facts)

• German Jesuit Astronomer and Instrument-Maker

• He spent all of his adult life in China

  • He became the director of the institute of mathematics and astronomy in Beijing (in China) and the director of the bureau of astronomy, which contributed to the introduction of Catholicism in China

  • He wore the robes of a Chinese scholar and spoke perfect Chinese

  • His influence faded when he tried too persistently to convert the Qing Emperors and their foes to Christianity

  • Moreover, other Jesuit missionaries thought him to be “too Chinese” and jealous Chinese astronomers began to undermine him in Beijing and in Rome, accusing and convicting him of preparing a Christian revolution

• He was condemned to death by dismemberment after being found guilty of accusations made against him by a jealous Chinese astronomer whose calculations he proved to be wrong

  • He was old and ill and it was unlikely that he was actually executed, but his lifelong work was certainly destroyed

1601 - 1680 - Athanasius Kircher (All Facts)

• German Jesuit Polymath and Scholar

  • He was a gifted and energetic priest as well as scholar

• He had himself lowered into the crater of the Vesuvius Volcano (in Germany) in order to observe its features and behavior in the aftermath of an eruption that had occurred from it

• He proposed the idea that the Earth has a fiery inner core

• He invented a “magic” lantern

1665 - Athanasius Kircher: The Subterranean World / The underground world and all its riches (All Facts)

• Geological textbook which became a standard work of reference

• Work in which the namesake author

  • describes Earth in terms of a furnace at its center with many fire carrying channels spreading outwards to the surface

  • describes how these channels are the sources of volcanoes and provide the heat for hot springs

• Work which was very influential in that many people were attracted to the namesake author’s ideas of a hot, turbulent core to Earth

1682 - 1782 - Acts of the Erudite / Acta Eruditorum (All Facts)

• First learned periodical in Germany

1635 - 1682 - Johann Joachim Becher (All Facts)

• German Scientist and Scholar

  • He was Lutheran

1669 - Johann Joachim Becher: Physica Subterranea (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author considers the Mosaic account of Creation in the light of contemporary scientific theories

1602 - 1686 - Otto von Guericke (All Facts)

• German Scientist, Mathematician, Physicist, and Inventor

• He amazed one imperial Diet with one of his flamboyant demonstrations

  • He had experimented with vacuum pumps, studying the effects of atmospheric pressure

  • He made two large brass hemispheres which fit snugly together to form a sphere

  • Before the assembled crowed, he pumped air out of the hollow ball

  • Then, he attached teams of eight horses to each side and signaled them to pull

  • The strength of the horses failed to tear the hemispheres apart

  • This demonstrated that the atmosphere exerts considerable pressure

1630 - 1710 - Hennig Brand (All Facts)

• German Chemist

• He discovered Phosphorus

  • He did this by chance while distilling a sample of urine

1646 - 1716 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (All Facts)

• German Mathematician

• He helped develop differential calculus

• He dedicated his life to the spread of scientific discoveries for the benefit of all mankind

• He died at the age of 70 in Hanover

1684 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Nova Methodis pro Maximus et Minimus (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author sets forth the process which led him to create differential calculus

1685 - 1766 - Johann Maria Farina (All Facts)

• Italian-German Chemist (Perfumer), Businessman, and “Inventor” (Patentor) of (Eau de) Cologne

• He made a recipe of the first cologne given to him by a travelling merchant

1682 - 1719 - Johann Friedrich Böttger (All Facts)

• German Aclhemist

• He is (typically) credited with being the first European to discover the secret of the creation of hard-paste porcelain

  • He discovered the secret of manufacturing hard Chinese porcelain

  • He was put in charge of a new porcelain factory in the town of Meissen as a result

1686 - 1736 - Daniel Fahrenheit (All Facts)

• German-Dutch Physicist, Inventor, and Scientific Instrument Maker

  • He was born to a German family in Poland but worked most of his life in the Netherlands (Holland)

• He invented the mercury thermometer; which

  • was more accurate than the alcohol-filled thermometer instruments in use up to that point

  • had three fixed points,

    • the lowest - 32 degrees, which is the freezing point of a mixture of water, ice, and salt

    • the highest - 212 degrees, which is the boiling point of water

    • in between - 98.4 degrees, which is the temperature of human blood

  • had a scale of temperature which was named after the namesake

• He discovered that water

  • can remain liquid even below its freezing point

  • boils at different temperatures, according to atmospheric pressure

• He also made precision meteorological instruments like barometers