Gottfried Heinsius (April, 1709 – May 21, 1769) was a German mathematician, geographer and astronomer.[1]
He was born near Naumburg and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1733 from the University of Leipzig with a dissertation on De viribus motricibus.[2] Later he became professor of mathematics at the same institution. Professor Heinsius may have been the first to publish an announcement about the return of Halley's comet in 1759.[3] From 1736–43 he taught in St. Petersburg with Leonhard Euler and was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.[4] While in Russia, he was given the task to provide the Russian Tsar Ivan VI with a horoscope.[4] He died in Leipzig. The crater Heinsius on the Moon is named after him.
References edit
- ^ Heinsius, Stephan (2000-04-29). "Gottfried Heinsius". Retrieved 2008-12-05.
- ^ Gottfried Heinsius at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Leverington, David (2003). Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Astronomy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 135–136. ISBN 0-521-80840-5.
- ^ a b Calinger, Ronald (May 1996). "Leonhard Euler: The First St. Petersburg Years (1727–1741)". Historia Mathematica. 23 (2): 121–166. doi:10.1006/hmat.1996.0015.
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