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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

German scientist and satirist (1742-1799) · Germany · Scientists · Died at 56

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg is read about 225 times a day, in 46 languages.

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A German physicist who pioneered experimental physics as an academic discipline, then became more famous for what he scribbled in his private notebooks - sharp, strange fragments that influenced everyone from Nietzsche to Wittgenstein.

ScientistsScientistPhysicsAstronomyLiteratureMathematicsPhilosophyEarly Modern Era

A life in dates

1799Died24 February 17991768“Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.”In their wordsB 12

“There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving the two points "born" and "died" farther away from one another...”In their wordsB 22

“I have written a good number of drafts and small reflections. They are not waiting for the last touch but for the sunlight to wake them up.”In their wordsB 29

1765“One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.”In their wordsA 10

“Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely.”In their wordsA 14

“It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and miraculous would not occur and all things would be equal.”In their wordsA 26

1742Born1 July 1742

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Georg Christoph LichtenbergGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg2022-08-10 LichtenbergAkademiehofAmPapendiek2022-08-10 LichtenbergAkademiehofAmPapendiek250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 100 Pfennig 1992 with partial sheet v2.0250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 100 Pfennig 1992 with partial sheet v2.0250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1992250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1992250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph Lichtenberg250. Geburtstag Georg Christoph LichtenbergGC Lichtenberg LVGC Lichtenberg LVGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg - Krüger engravingGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg - Krüger engravingGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg an Friedrich Bouterwek 1797-06-09Georg Christoph Lichtenberg an Friedrich Bouterwek 1797-06-09

In their own words 10

,
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
,
10 statements, newest first

  1. Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

    1768, B 12, Own words

  2. There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving the two points "born" and "died" farther away from one another...

    1768, B 22, Own words

  3. I have written a good number of drafts and small reflections. They are not waiting for the last touch but for the sunlight to wake them up.

    1768, B 29, Own words

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Awards

Fellow of the Royal Society

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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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About this person

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born on 1 July 1742 and became the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics. He discovered the branching electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures. But his real legacy came from notebooks he called Sudelbücher - "waste books" - journals of aphorisms, observations, and satirical jabs that he never intended to publish. They appeared only after his death on 24 February 1799, and turned out to contain some of the sharpest prose in German letters: a physicist's mind turned loose on human absurdity.

Country
Germany
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1742 to 1799 · aged 56

Scientists from Germany 6

Friedrich Wöhler60.4Georg Bednorz60.0Kurt Alder60.5Caroline Herschel59.6Rudolf Mössbauer60.8Ernst Ruska59.3

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