Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler (1 November 1751, in

Görlitz Görlitz (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, East Lusatian: , , ) is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is on the river Lusatian Neisse and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia, the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia after ...

– 16 October 1795, in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

) was a German lawyer and physicist who lived in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. He studied mathematics, natural sciences and law at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, obtaining his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

for mathematics in 1776 and his law degree the following year. While a student, his influences included physicist

Johann Heinrich Winckler Johann Heinrich Winkler or Winckler (12 March 1703 – 18 May 1770) was a German physicist and philosopher. Biography Early life Winckler was born in Jałowiec, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Wingendorf, a village in Silesia.Klemme, Heiner F; Kuehn, ...

. In 1783 he became a city councilman in Leipzig, and from 1786 served as an associate at the Oberhofgericht Leipzig. Gehler Phys

He is best remembered as the author of a popular dictionary of physical sciences, ''Physikalisches Wörterbuch'', published from 1787 in six volumes. Decades later, the dictionary was edited and re-issued in 11 volumes (1825–45); its editors being

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), ...

Leopold Gmelin Leopold Gmelin (2 August 1788 – 13 April 1853) was a German chemist. Gmelin was a professor at the University of Heidelberg. He worked on the Potassium ferricyanide, red prussiate and created Gmelin's test, and wrote his ''Handbook of Chemistry ...

, Johann Caspar Horner, Carl Ludwig Littrow, Christian Heinrich Pfaff and Georg Wilhelm Muncke. In 1783 he published a German translation of Tiberius Cavallo's ''A complete treatise on electricity'' as ''Vollständige Abhandlung der theoretischen und praktischen Lehre von der Electricität''. In 1796 his translation of Fourcroy's ''Philosophie chimique'' was published with the title ''Philosophie oder Grundwahrheiten der neuern Chemie''.Most widely held works by Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler
WorldCat Identities

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gehler, Johann Samuel Traugott 1751 births 1795 deaths 18th-century German lawyers People from Görlitz Leipzig University alumni 18th-century German physicists