Poggendorff, Johann Christian
Poggendorff, Johann Christian
(yō`hän krĭs`tyän pôg`əndôrf'), 1796–1877, German physicist and chemist. He founded (1824) and edited the important Annalen der Physik und Chemie and edited the first two volumes (1863) of Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch. Professor of chemistry at the Univ. of Berlin from 1834, he investigated problems in electricity and magnetism.Poggendorff, Johann Christian
Born Dec. 29, 1796, in Hamburg; died Jan. 24, 1877, in Berlin. German physicist. Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1839).
Poggendorff worked as a pharmacist from 1812 until 1820, when he began his studies at the University of Berlin. He became a professor there in 1834. His research dealt chiefly with electricity and magnetism, and he contributed to the development of such instruments as the multiplier and the sine and tangent galvanometers. In 1824 he began publication of the journal An-nalen derPhysik und Chemie, which recorded developments and advances in physics and chemistry, and the handbook Biogra-phisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch, which contained biographical information and a bibliography of the works of many of the world’s scientists. Poggendorff was a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1869).