Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus
Encyclopedia
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (or Tschirnhausen) (April 10, 1651 – October 11, 1708) was a German
mathematician
, physicist
, physician
, and philosopher. He now is considered by some to have been the inventor of European porcelain
, an invention long accredited to Johann Friedrich Böttger
(recent discoveries indicate that Böttger might not have invented European porcelain but simply to have been one of the first men to have made it).
) and died in Dresden
, Saxony
.
at Görlitz
. Thereafter he studied mathematics
, philosophy
, and medicine
at the University of Leiden. He traveled considerably in France
, Italy
, and Switzerland
, and served in the army of Holland (1672-73). During his travels he met Baruch de Spinoza and Christiaan Huygens in the Netherlands, Isaac Newton
in England, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (with whom he maintained a life-long correspondence) in Paris. He became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris.
, by which he removed certain intermediate terms from a given algebraic equation, is well-known. It was published in the scientific journal Acta Eruditorum
in 1683.
In 1682, Von Tschirnhaus worked out the theory of catacaustics and showed that they were rectifiable. This was the second case in which the envelope of a moving line was determined. One of the catacaustics of a parabola
still is known as Tschirnhausen cubic
.
In 1696, Johann Bernoulli posed the problem of the brachystochrone to the readers of Acta Eruditorum. Tschirnhaus was one of only five mathematicians to submit a solution. Bernoulli published these contributions (including Tschirnhaus') along with his own in the journal in May of the following year.
Von Tschirnhaus produced various types of lenses and mirrors, some of them are displayed in museums. He erected a large glass works in Saxony
, where he constructed burning glasses of unusual perfection and carried on his experiments (1687-88).
His work Medicina mentis sive artis inveniendi praecepta generali (1687) combines methods of deduction
with empiricism
and shows him to be philosophically connected to the Enlightenment
.
, Von Tschirnhaus initiated systematic experiments, using mixtures of various silicate
s and earths at different temperatures, to develop porcelain, which at the time was available only as a costly import from China
and Japan
. As early as 1704, he showed “porcelan” to Leibniz’s secretary. He proposed the establishment of a porcelain factory to Frederick August II
, Elector of Saxony, but was denied. In 1704, too, Von Tschirnhaus became the supervisor of Johann Friedrich Böttger
, a nineteen-year-old alchemist
who claimed to be able to make gold. Böttger only reluctantly and under pressure started to participate in Tschirnhaus’s work by 1707. The use of kaolin (from Schneeberg, Saxony) and alabaster
advanced the work, so that August II named him the director of the porcelain factory he intended to establish. The Elector ordered payment of 2,561 thalers to Von Tschirnhaus, but the recipient requested postponement until the factory was producing. When Von Tschirnhaus died suddenly, on October 11, 1708, the project came to a halt.
Three days after Von Tschirnhaus’s death, there was a burglary at his house and, according to a report by Böttger, a small piece of porcelain was stolen. This report suggests that Böttger himself recognized that Von Tschirnhaus already knew how to make porcelain, a key piece of evidence that Von Tschirnhaus and not Böttger was the inventor. Work resumed on March 20, 1709, by which time Melchior Steinbrück had arrived to assess the dead man’s estate, which included the notes about making porcelain, and had met with Böttger. On March 28, 1709, Böttger went to August II and announced the invention of porcelain. Böttger now was nominated to head the first European manufactory for porcelain. Steinbrück became an inspector and married Böttger’s sister.
Contemporary testimonies of knowledgeable people indicate that Tschirnhaus invented porcelain. In 1719, for example, Samuel Stölzel of the porcelain factory of Meissen
went to Vienna
with the still-secret recipe and confirmed that it had been invented by Von Tschirnhaus and not by Böttger. In that same year, the General Secretary of the Meissen factory also indicated that the invention was not Böttger's “but by the late Herr von Tschirnhaus[,] whose written science” was handed to Böttger “by the inspector Steinbrück.” Nevertheless, Böttger’s name became closely associated with the invention.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, and philosopher. He now is considered by some to have been the inventor of European porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
, an invention long accredited to Johann Friedrich Böttger
Johann Friedrich Böttger
Johann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...
(recent discoveries indicate that Böttger might not have invented European porcelain but simply to have been one of the first men to have made it).
Biography
Von Tschirnhaus was born in Kieslingswalde (now Sławnikowice in western PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
) and died in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
.
Education
Von Tschirnhaus attended the GymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
at Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...
. Thereafter he studied mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the University of Leiden. He traveled considerably in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and served in the army of Holland (1672-73). During his travels he met Baruch de Spinoza and Christiaan Huygens in the Netherlands, Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
in England, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (with whom he maintained a life-long correspondence) in Paris. He became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris.
The mathematician
The Tschirnhaus transformationTschirnhaus transformation
In mathematics, a Tschirnhaus transformation, also known as Tschirnhausen transformation, is a type of mapping on polynomials developed by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in 1683. It may be defined conveniently by means of field theory, as the transformation on minimal polynomials implied by a...
, by which he removed certain intermediate terms from a given algebraic equation, is well-known. It was published in the scientific journal Acta Eruditorum
Acta Eruditorum
Acta Eruditorum was the first scientific journal of the German lands, published from 1682 to 1782....
in 1683.
In 1682, Von Tschirnhaus worked out the theory of catacaustics and showed that they were rectifiable. This was the second case in which the envelope of a moving line was determined. One of the catacaustics of a parabola
Parabola
In mathematics, the parabola is a conic section, the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface...
still is known as Tschirnhausen cubic
Tschirnhausen cubic
In geometry, Tschirnhausen cubic, is a plane curve defined by the polar equationr = a\sec^3.-History:The curve was studied by von Tschirnhaus, de L'Hôpital and Catalan. It was given the name Tschirnhausen cubic in a 1900 paper by R C Archibald, though it is sometimes known as de L'Hôpital's cubic...
.
In 1696, Johann Bernoulli posed the problem of the brachystochrone to the readers of Acta Eruditorum. Tschirnhaus was one of only five mathematicians to submit a solution. Bernoulli published these contributions (including Tschirnhaus') along with his own in the journal in May of the following year.
Von Tschirnhaus produced various types of lenses and mirrors, some of them are displayed in museums. He erected a large glass works in Saxony
Kingdom of Saxony
The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...
, where he constructed burning glasses of unusual perfection and carried on his experiments (1687-88).
His work Medicina mentis sive artis inveniendi praecepta generali (1687) combines methods of deduction
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...
with empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
and shows him to be philosophically connected to the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
.
Inventor of porcelain
After he returned home to SaxonyElectorate of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony , sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire. It was established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356...
, Von Tschirnhaus initiated systematic experiments, using mixtures of various silicate
Silicate
A silicate is a compound containing a silicon bearing anion. The great majority of silicates are oxides, but hexafluorosilicate and other anions are also included. This article focuses mainly on the Si-O anions. Silicates comprise the majority of the earth's crust, as well as the other...
s and earths at different temperatures, to develop porcelain, which at the time was available only as a costly import from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. As early as 1704, he showed “porcelan” to Leibniz’s secretary. He proposed the establishment of a porcelain factory to Frederick August II
Augustus II the Strong
Frederick Augustus I or Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ....
, Elector of Saxony, but was denied. In 1704, too, Von Tschirnhaus became the supervisor of Johann Friedrich Böttger
Johann Friedrich Böttger
Johann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...
, a nineteen-year-old alchemist
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
who claimed to be able to make gold. Böttger only reluctantly and under pressure started to participate in Tschirnhaus’s work by 1707. The use of kaolin (from Schneeberg, Saxony) and alabaster
Alabaster
Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the latter is the alabaster of the ancients...
advanced the work, so that August II named him the director of the porcelain factory he intended to establish. The Elector ordered payment of 2,561 thalers to Von Tschirnhaus, but the recipient requested postponement until the factory was producing. When Von Tschirnhaus died suddenly, on October 11, 1708, the project came to a halt.
Three days after Von Tschirnhaus’s death, there was a burglary at his house and, according to a report by Böttger, a small piece of porcelain was stolen. This report suggests that Böttger himself recognized that Von Tschirnhaus already knew how to make porcelain, a key piece of evidence that Von Tschirnhaus and not Böttger was the inventor. Work resumed on March 20, 1709, by which time Melchior Steinbrück had arrived to assess the dead man’s estate, which included the notes about making porcelain, and had met with Böttger. On March 28, 1709, Böttger went to August II and announced the invention of porcelain. Böttger now was nominated to head the first European manufactory for porcelain. Steinbrück became an inspector and married Böttger’s sister.
Contemporary testimonies of knowledgeable people indicate that Tschirnhaus invented porcelain. In 1719, for example, Samuel Stölzel of the porcelain factory of Meissen
Meissen
Meissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...
went to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
with the still-secret recipe and confirmed that it had been invented by Von Tschirnhaus and not by Böttger. In that same year, the General Secretary of the Meissen factory also indicated that the invention was not Böttger's “but by the late Herr von Tschirnhaus[,] whose written science” was handed to Böttger “by the inspector Steinbrück.” Nevertheless, Böttger’s name became closely associated with the invention.
External links
- Website of the Tschirnhausgesellschaft (in English and German)
- http://www.tschirnhaus.de
- http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~krautz/saw_tsch
- Gunter E. Grimm: Argumentation und Schreibstrategie. Zum Vulkanismus-Diskurs im Werk von Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus
- http://www.sigsam.org/bulletin/articles/143/tschirnhaus.pdf English translation (by RF Green) of his 1683 paper—A method for removing all intermediate terms from a given equation.