Today in Technology History
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July 1
History gives many examples of brilliant individuals whose great potential is wasted. In the area of science and technology, the best known case is that of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the great figures of the Italian Renaissance, whose famous notebooks teem with unrealized inventions. Our subject today is a German "Renaissance Man" who lived three centuries after Leonardo -- but who, like Leonardo, could have been so much more.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born exactly 260 years ago, on July 1, 1742, near Darmstadt, Germany. He graduated from the University of Göttingen and remained there as a professor for the rest of his life. His friends and admirers included Goethe, Kant and England's King George III.
Lichtenberg was a charming, hunchbacked, lecherous hypochondriac. He had an insatiable curiosity and wrote about art, philosophy, psychology, morality and much more -- but his work in science and technology are of the most interest to us. Lichtenberg studied and taught chemistry, geology, physics, meteorology and astronomy.
His work in the area of electricity held the most promise. Lichtenberg put up the first lightning rod in the town of Göttingen, and his experiments with electricity attracted many other scientists, including Volta (for whom our electrical word "volt" is named). Lichtenberg's only true scientific discovery related to electricity: in 1777, he found that discharges of static electricity can form remarkable patterns in bits of dust. The basic principle behind these so-called "Lichtenberg figures" is employed in modern photocopying machines, but Lichtenberg himself found no use for the discovery.
When he died in 1799, Lichtenberg left behind more than a dozen thick notebooks filled with his writings -- including remarkable speculations and imaginings about inventions. Time and again in his notebooks, he suggests tempting technologies which he never brought to fruition. Because of his frustrating inability to complete a successful invention, Lichtenberg is instead usually remembered for thousands of aphorisms he jotted in his notebooks. As an inventor, Lichtenberg would have been forever honored for his contribution to mankind; instead, he is a mere historical footnote.
Related links:
Click here to read more about Lichtenberg and "Lichtenberg figures."
This page combines pictures of "Lichtenberg figures" with some of Lichtenberg's epigrams.
To see more pictures of "Lichtenberg figures," click here.
Click here to read more of Lichtenberg's aphorisms.
This page includes an excellent article on Lichtenberg's life and works.
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