Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (or
Tschirnhausen) (April 10, 1651 – October 11, 1708) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and/or research is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with particular problems related to logic, space, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts...
,
physicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
,
physicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
and philosopher. He is the inventor of the European
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
, an invention that for a long time had been assigned to
Johann Friedrich BöttgerJohann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...
. He was born in Kieslingswalde (now Sławnikowice in western Poland) and died in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
.
Tschirnhaus attended the
GymnasiumA gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools...
at
GörlitzGörlitz is a town in Germany on the Lusatian Neisse River, in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz belongs to the region of Upper Lusatia and Silesia. Today it is the easternmost town in Germany...
. Thereafter he studied
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
,
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the University of Leiden.
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (or
Tschirnhausen) (April 10, 1651 – October 11, 1708) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and/or research is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with particular problems related to logic, space, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts...
,
physicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
,
physicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
and philosopher. He is the inventor of the European
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
, an invention that for a long time had been assigned to
Johann Friedrich BöttgerJohann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...
. He was born in Kieslingswalde (now Sławnikowice in western Poland) and died in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
.
Education
Tschirnhaus attended the
GymnasiumA gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools...
at
GörlitzGörlitz is a town in Germany on the Lusatian Neisse River, in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz belongs to the region of Upper Lusatia and Silesia. Today it is the easternmost town in Germany...
. Thereafter he studied
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
,
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
, and
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the University of Leiden. During his travels he met Baruch de Spinoza and
Christiaan HuygensChristiaan Huygens, FRS was a prominent Dutch mathematician, astronomer, physicist, horologist, and writer of early science fiction...
in the Netherlands,
Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton FRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential men in history...
in England, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Paris, with whom he maintained a life-long correspondence. He became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris.
The Mathematician
The
Tschirnhaus transformationIn mathematics, a Tschirnhaus transformation, developed by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in 1683, is a type of mapping on polynomials. It may be defined conveniently by means of field theory, as the transformation on minimal polynomials implied by a different choice of primitive element...
, by which he removed certain intermediate terms from a given
algebraic equationIn mathematics, an algebraic equation over a given field is an equation of the formwhere P and Q are polynomials over that field...
, is well-known; it was published in the scientific journal
Acta EruditorumActa Eruditorum was the first scientific journal of the German lands, published from 1682 to 1782....
in 1683.
In 1682 he worked out the theory of catacaustics and showed that they were rectifiable. This was the second case in which the envelope of a moving line was determined. One if the catacaustics of a
parabolaIn mathematics, the parabola is a conic section, the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface...
is known as
Tschirnhausen cubicIn geometry, Tschirnhausen cubic, is a plane curve defined by the polar equation-History:The curve was studied by Tschirnhaus, de L'Hôpital and Catalan. It was given the name Tschirnhausen cubic in a 1900 paper by R C Archibald, though it is sometimes known as de L'Hôpital's cubic or the trisectrix...
.
Tschirnhaus produced various types of lenses and mirrors, some of them are displayed in museums.
His work
Medicina mentis sive artis inveniendi praecepta generali (1687) combines methods of
deductionDeduction: an argument or reasoning process in which the conclusion follows from the premises with logical necessity* Deductive reasoning, inference in which the conclusion is of no greater generality than the premises...
with
empiricismIn philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views about how we know "things," part of the branch of philosophy called epistemology, or "the Theory of Knowledge"...
and shows him to be philosophically connected to the
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment, or simply The Enlightenment, is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority....
.
Inventor of Porcelain
After he returned home to
SaxonyThe Electorate of Saxony or Duchy of Upper Saxony was an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806...
, Tschirnhaus initiated systematic experiments, using mixtures of various
silicateA silicate is a compound containing an ion in which one or more central silicon atoms are surrounded by electronegative ligands. This definition is broad enough to include species such as hexafluorosilicate , [SiF6]2−, but the silicate species that are encountered most often...
s and earths at different temperatures to develop porcelain, which at that time was only available as a luxury import from
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Already in 1704 he showed “porcelan” to Leibniz’s secretary. He proposed to
Frederick August IIFrederick Augustus I or Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ....
, Elector of Saxony, the establishment of a Porcelain Factory, but was denied. In 1704 he became the supervisor of
Johann Friedrich BöttgerJohann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...
, a 19 year-old
alchemistAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
who claimed that he was able to make gold. Böttger only reluctantly and under pressure started to participate in Tschirnhaus’ work by 1707. The use of Kaolin from Schneeberg, Saxony, and
alabasterAlabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; the latter is generally the alabaster of the ancients....
advanced the work, so that August II named him the director of the porcelain factory he intended to establish. He ordered a payment of 2,561 thalers to be made to Tschirnhaus, but the recipient requested to postpone the payment until the factory was producing. Unexpectedly, Tschirnhaus died on October 11, 1708. The project came to a halt.
Three days after Tschirnhaus’ death, there was a burglary at his house, and, according to a report by Böttger, a small piece of porcelain was stolen. This report suggests that Böttger himself recognized that Tschirnhaus already knew how to make porcelain, a key piece of evidence that Tschirnhaus is the inventor. Work resumed on March 20, 1709, when Melchior Steinbrück had arrived to assess the deceased’s estate, which included the notes about making porcelain. He also at that time met with Böttger. On March 28, 1709, Böttger went to August II and announced the invention of porcelain. Böttger now was nominated to head the first European manufactory for porcelain. Steinbrück became an inspector and married Böttger’s sister.
Contemporary testimonies of knowledgeable people indicate that Tschirnhaus invented porcelain. Thus 1719 Samuel Stölzel of the porcelain factory of
MeissenMeissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...
went to
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
with the still-secret recipe and confirmed that it had been invented by Tschirnhaus and not Böttger. The General Secretary of the Meissen factory also indicated in 1719 that the invention was not by Böttger “but by the late Herr von Tschirnhaus whose written science“ was handed to Böttger „ by the inspector Steinbrück.” Nevertheless, Böttger’s name became closely associated with the invention.
External links
- Biographie in der ADB, Bd. S. 722-724 (Leipzig 1894) unter http://mdz.bib-bvb.de/digbib/lexika/adb/images/adb038/
- Website of the Tschirnhausgesellschaft (in English and German)
- http://www.tschirnhaus.de
- http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~krautz/saw_tsch
- http://www.goethezeitportal.de/fileadmin/PDF/db/wiss/tschirnhaus_grimm.pdf Gunter E. Grimm: Argumentation und Schreibstrategie. Zum Vulkanismus-Diskurs im Werk von Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus]
- http://www.sigsam.org/bulletin/articles/143/tschirnhaus.pdf English translation (by RF Green) of his 1683 paper-- A method for removing all intermediate terms from a given equation.