Johann Friedrich Benzenberg (5 May 1777 – 7 June 1846) was a German astronomer, geologist, and physicist.

Biography

Benzenberg was born near

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the Germany, German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

on 5 May 1777 to Heinrich Benzenberg and Johanna Elisabeth. He married Charlotte Platzhoff in 1807. After studying

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

at Herborn and

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

, he travelled to

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

where he became interested in science through attending lectures by

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 ...

and

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 ...

. Benzenberg obtained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the

University of Duisburg The old University of Duisburg was a university in Duisburg, Germany. History Its origins date back to the 1555 decision to create a university for the unified duchies at the Lower Rhine that were later to be merged into Prussia. After the foundati ...

in 1800 and became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of mathematics at the women's college of

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

in 1805. After the Napoleonic occupation of Germany he immigrated to

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

where he became interested in politics. Benzenberg's interest in politics led him to write extensively on issues such as the constitution of Prussia. In 1844 Benzenberg built a private observatory, the

Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory The Sternwarte Düsseldorf (a.k.a. Sternwarte Bilk, Sternwarte Charlottenruhe; Bilk Observatory or Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory in English) in Düsseldorf-Bilk was a private observatory founded in 1843 by Johann Friedrich Benzenberg. The observat ...

, in Bilk, which he later donated to the city along with a grant to pay for a resident astronomer. In 1798, whilst still a student at the University of Göttingen, Benzenberg and

Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes (; 27 July 1777 – 17 May 1834) was a German physicist, meteorologist, and astronomer. Brandes was born in 1777 in Groden near Ritzebüttel (a former exclave of the Free Imperial City of Hamburg, today in Cuxhaven), ...

studied the atmospheric altitude of

meteor A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

s, collecting the first evidence that they were inside the atmosphere. Later, in 1802 and 1804, Benzenberg helped prove the

Earth's rotation Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own Rotation around a fixed axis, axis, as well as changes in the orientation (geometry), orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in progra ...

by conducting experiments originally suggested by

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

; dropping balls from a height.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benzenberg, Johann People from Elberfeld 1777 births 1846 deaths University of Göttingen alumni 19th-century German physicists Scientists from Wuppertal Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Physicists from the Kingdom of Prussia