Johann von Lamont
| Johann von Lamont | |
|---|---|
| Lamont in 1856
Lamont in 1856
| |
| Born | 13 December 1805 Corriemulzie, Scotland |
| Died | 6 August 1879 (aged 73) Munich, Germany |
| Known for | Magnetism of the Earth |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy, physics |
| Doctoral students | Philipp Carl |
.jpg){kind=link}
Johann von Lamont, FRSE (13 December 1805 – 6 August 1879), born John Lamont, was a Scottish-German astronomer and physicist.
Biography
Lamont was born at Corriemulzie near Inverey in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The son of Robert Lamont (forester to Earl Fife) and Elizabeth Ewan, his education began at the local school in Inverey, near Braemar. In 1817 his father died and John was sent to be educated at St James' monastery (Scots Benedictine College) at Regensburg, Germany.[1] He began to work in astronomy and joined the Bogenhausen Observatory, became its director in 1835, took his doctorate of philosophy in 1830 and became professor of astronomy in 1852 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.[2] At the observatory he undertook the task of creating a star catalog that had about 35,000 entries.
In 1845, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[3]
His most important work was on the magnetism of the Earth. He performed magnetic surveys in Bavaria and northern Germany, France, Spain, and Denmark. He discovered a magnetic decennial period (ten-year cycle)[4] and the electric current in the Earth closing the electric "circuit" creating the magnetic field in 1850. This roughly matched the eleven-year sunspot cycle discovered by Heinrich Schwabe.
He calculated the orbits of the moons of Uranus and Saturn, obtaining the first value for Uranus' mass. By chance, he observed Neptune in 1845 and twice in 1846, but did not recognize the object as being a new planet.
He died, unmarried and without children, in Munich, Germany, on 6 August 1879. His considerable wealth was used to found scholarships in sciences.[1] He is buried in Bogenhausen Churchyard on the edge of Munich.
Publications
Lamont is the author of Handbuch des Erdmagnetismus (1849).
Honours
His many honours include ForMemRS and FRSE. In 1867, he was awarded the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown by the King of Bavaria, through which Lamont was ennobled and permitted to use the predicate "von". The statue on his tomb in Munich has him with an open hand, into which the locals put small coins. In 1934, the Deeside Field Club erected a granite memorial cairn in his memory at Inverey, Scotland. It was unveiled by Sir James Jeans.[1]
The following astronomical features were named in his honour:
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Johann von Lamont — Astronomer and physicist, b. 13 Dec., 1805, at Braemar in Scotland, near Balmoral Castle; d. 6 Aug., 1879, at Bogenhausen near Munich, Bavaria. He was educated in a private school in Scotland. Father Gallus Robertson, a representative of the Scotch monastery of St. Jacob at Ratisbon, accidentally met the boy after the death of his father in 1816 and took him to Germany as a novice. At Ratisbon he became especially interested in mathematical and scientific studies under the prior, Benedict Deasson. He did not take Holy orders but, in 1827, was recommended for appointment as assistant to Soldner, the director of the new observatory at Bogenhausen near Munich. His work there was so excellent that, after Soldner's death in 1835, he was chosen director. He was honored by membership in the Royal Bavarian Academy, the Academies of Brussels, Upsala, and Prague, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, etc. In 1852 he also became professor of astronomy at the University of Munich.
His scientific achievements are classified under three heads: astronomical, geodetic, and physical. His technical dexterity was such as to make the employment of a mechanician unnecessary. A room in his home was fitted up as a workshop. With the excellent one and one-half inch refractor furnished him in 1836 he studied especially nebulae and star-clusters, laying the foundation for such investigations. From observations of the moons of Uranus he calculated its mass (Memoirs of the Royal Astr. Soc., XI, 1838). The ten volumes of the publications of the observatory, "Observationes Astronomicae e in Specula Regia Monacensi", and the thirty-four volumes of the "Annalen derköniglichen Sternwarte bei Munchen" contain a great deal of material. In 1840 he began to observe the faint stars from the seventh to the tenth magnitude, and recorded 80,000 of them. In geodetic work he added the Bavarian survey to the Austrian, determined the differences of longitude of Vienna, Munich, Geneva, and Strasburg, and completed the astronomical triangulation of Bavaria. In telluric physics he was especially active. He organized a meteorological society which spread all over Germany. Numerous registering instruments of his own construction were set up, and officials attached to the various courts of law were also provided with meteorological instruments made by Lamont himself. He invented a portable theodolite for magnetic measurements and with it he established the constants of the earth's magnetic force for a number of places through Middle Europe, from Spain to Denmark. Owing to lack of funds only three numbers were published of the "Annalen fur Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus", 1842-4, but these contain a mass of valuable information.
For fifty-two years Lamont lived alone in the quiet village near his observatory, greatly respected by the inhabitants. To Munich he went only to deliver his lectures, to attend the meetings of the academic senate, or to spend a social evening in the Catholic Casino. His religious and political views were very decidedly conservative. Not caring for the ordinary pleasures of life, he managed to save a little fortune on his moderate salary, which reached a maximum of 6500 florins yearly at the end. This fortune was devoted to a scholarship for mathematical students, amounting to 72,000 marks in 1883. His larger works are: "Handbuch des Erdmagnetismus" (Berlin, 1849); "Handbuch des Magnetismus" (Leipzig, 1860); "Astronomie und Erdmagnetismus" (Stuttgart, 1851).
GUNTHER in Allg. Deutsche Biog., XVII (Leipzig, 1883), 570; VON SCHAFHAUTL in JORG, Hist.-polit. Blatter, LXXXV (Munich, 1880), 54; VON ORFF in Carl's Repertorium, XVI (Leipzig and Munich, 1880), 685.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Back to citation occurrence 1.2 Hetherington, Barry (October 2005). "Centenaries of 2005". Astronomical Society of Edinburgh Journal. 114 (49): 353. Bibcode:2004JBAA.114.353H. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
- Back to citation Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lamont, Johann von". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Back to citation Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
- Back to citation Lamont (1851). "Ueber die zehnjährige Periode, welche sich in der Gröβe der täglichen Bewegung der Magnetnadel darstellt" [On the ten-year period which is present in the magnitude of the daily movement of the magnetic needle]. Annalen der Physik. 2nd series (in German). 84 (12): 572–584. Bibcode:1851AnP...160.572L. doi:10.1002/andp.18511601206.
- Back to citation "Stargazing and stargazers at LMU". Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Retrieved 9 November 2017.