Heinrich Friedrich Weber

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Heinrich Martin Weber.
Heinrich Friedrich Weber
ETH Zurich
Thesis Neue Probleme der Diffraktionstheorie des Lichtes  (1865)
Doctoral advisorErnst Abbe
Other academic advisorsHermann von Helmholtz

Heinrich Friedrich Weber (/ˈveɪbər/;[1] German: [ˈveːbɐ]; 7 November 1843 – 24 May 1912) was a physicist born in the town of Magdala, near Weimar.

Biography

Around 1861 he entered the University of Jena, where Ernst Abbe became the first of two physicists who decisively influenced his career (Weiss 1912, pp. 44–45). Weber soon discovered, however, that he lacked sufficient mathematical talent, and so he abandoned mathematics entirely (Weiss 1912, p. 44).

Returning to physics, Abbe found in Weber a young and dynamic scientist, one who successfully focused much of his research efforts on re-thinking optical theory. Abbe not only instructed Weber in the lecture hall and laboratory, he also served as a role model for him in several other ways: through his emphasis on the importance of laboratory work in general and precision instrumentation in particular; through his view that science should be closely related to practical life; and through his embodiment of the idea that a single individual could accomplish much in life. This last point, according to

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule
, as the Zurich Polytechnic came to be called after 1911, was “the mainspring of his [Weber’s] life, the source of his most beautiful successes” (Weiss 1912, p. 44).

Weber received his doctorate under Abbe in 1865 with a dissertation on the theory of light

University of Berlin
, he took Weber along as his first assistant. Helmholtz now became the second formative, and decidedly primary, influence on Weber’s career.

During his three years as Helmholtz’s assistant in Berlin (1871–1874), Weber helped Helmholtz set up and equip the Berlin laboratory and also helped him direct the student laboratories.

In 1872 and 1874, Weber published two noteworthy papers in the

specific heats of carbon, boron, and silicon at various temperatures (Weber 1872, 1874).[2] Working in Helmholtz’s refurbished Berlin laboratory, Weber measured the specific heats of these three elements and showed them to be noticeably smaller at low temperatures than predicted by the Dulong–Petit law
; moreover, he found that, with an increase in temperature, their specific heats increased extraordinarily rapidly. Only when he increased the temperature beyond 1,000 degrees Celsius did the specific heats again follow the predictions of Dulong and Petit. For nearly thirty years Weber’s empirical findings remained an anomaly until one of his students presented a new explanation (Weiss 1912, pp. 49–50; Pais 1982, pp. 391–392).

Weber married Anna Hochstetter in 1875. The couple had three daughters and five sons, all of which became academics: Oskar: chemist; Friedrich: geologist; Ernst: civil engineer and astronomer; Helmut and Richard: physicians.

Einstein and Weber

Albert Einstein considered Weber a doctoral advisor. Following a bitter disagreement with Weber, Einstein switched to Alfred Kleiner.[3][4] Heinrich Weber was both Einstein's and Mileva Marić's thesis advisor, and he gave their respective papers the two lowest essay grades in the class, with 4.5 and 4.0, respectively, on a scale of 1 to 6.[5] Einstein also famously once commented that Weber's lectures were 50 years out of date and did not contain Maxwell's equations.

References

  1. ^ "Weber". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. ^ Weber, H.F., "Die spezifische Wärme der Elemente Kohlenstoff, Bor und Silicium", Pogg. Ann., 154, 1874
  3. ^ Alice Calaprice, Daniel Kennefick, Robert Schulmann; "An Einstein Encyclopedia" Princeton University Press, 27 Oct 2015
  4. arXiv:1205.4335
  5. arXiv:1503.08020 [physics.hist-ph
    ].

Sources
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