German mathematician, physicist and astronomer (1728-1777)
A self-taught polymath from Mulhouse who proved pi is irrational and left his fingerprints on optics, map projections, and half a dozen other fields before dying at 49.
Johann Heinrich Lambert was born in the Republic of Mulhouse — then allied to the Swiss Confederacy — on 26 or 28 August 1728. He ranged across mathematics, physics, philosophy, astronomy, and cartography, making contributions that outlasted the century. His work in optics reshaped how light was understood; his advances in map projections changed how the world was drawn. He died in Berlin on 25 September 1777, not yet fifty, with problems still unsolved on his desk.
Sourced, dated quotes from Johann Heinrich Lambert
In the month of Sept. 1759, Mr. Lambert was at Ausburg... for the purpose of giving the last touch to his Photometry, and to have it printed under his own eye.
We would wish to discover the Plan of the Universe, and the means employed by the Eternal Architect in the execution of his magnificent design.
But, are the faculties of our nature equal to this? and what are the principles which ought to guide us in these researches?
We will found our hypothesis in the general laws of motion, whose effects are every where the same, and whose influence extends to the utmost limits of matter.
We will next proceed by the lamp of experience, consulting with care the observations deposited in the records of astronomy.
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