Poggendorf

Poggendorf, JOHANN CHRISTIAN, a German physicist, was born at Hamburg, 29th December 1796. He studied pharmacy, chemistry, and physics, and was professor of Physics at Berlin from 1834 till his death. In 1839 he was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. His chief discoveries were in connection with electricity and galvanism; he also invented a multiplying galvanometer for measuring the calorific action of currents. From 1824 he edited the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, better known as Poggendorfs Annalen, an important organ for the history of the physical sciences. Besides helping Liebig and Wöhler to prepare the Dictionnaire de Chimie (1837-51), he wrote Lebenslinien zu einer Geschichte der exakten Wissenschaften (1853), Biographisch-literarisches Wörterbuch zur Geschichte der exakten Wissenschaften (2 vols. 1857-63), and Geschichte der Physik (1879). He died 24th January 1877.