Lambert, JOHANN HEINRICH

Lambert, JOHANN HEINRICH, a philosopher and mathematician, was born 29th August 1728, at Müllhausen in Upper Alsace. He was successively clerk, secretary, and private tutor, studied assiduously all the time, and at last lived the life of a private gentleman. In 1764 Frederick the Great made him a member both of the Council of Architecture and of the Academy of Sciences. He died at Berlin, 25th September 1777. Lambert was the first to lay a scientific basis for the measurement of the intensity of light, in his Photometria (1760); and he was especially skilful in applying the analytical methods of mathematics. A work on analytical logic from his pen, Neues Organon (2 vols. 1764), was greatly valued by Kant, with whom Lambert kept up a correspondence. Of his other works we may mention Kosmologische Briefe (1761) and Anlage zur Architekttonik (1771). See Huber's Life of him (1829) and Lepsius's monograph on his philosophy (1881).