POGGENDORFF, Johann Christian (1796-1877), physicist, and editor for more than half a century of the well-known scientific journal called after him Poggendorff's Annalen, was born in Hamburg on the 29th December 1796. His father, a wealthy manufacturer of that town, was all but ruined by the French siege. His son Christian, after receiving his education at Hamburg and Schiffbeck, had therefore, when only sixteen, to apprentice himself to an apothecary in Hamburg, and when twenty-two began to earn his living as an apothecary’s assistant at Itzehoe. Ambition and a strong inclination towards a scientific career led him to throw up his business and remove to Berlin, where he entered the university in 1820. Here his abilities were speedily recognized, and in 1823 he was appointed meteorological observer to the Academy of Sciences with a small salary, which was important to him, inasmuch as the expenses of his university career had nearly exhausted his slender patrimony. Even at this early period he had conceived the idea of founding a physical and chemical scientific journal. The realization of this plan was hastened by the sudden death of Gilbert, the editor of Gilbert's Annalen der Physik, in 1824. Poggendorff immediately put himself in communication with the publisher, Barth of Leipsic, with the result that he was installed as editor of a scientific journal which was to be a continuation of Gilbert's Annalen on a somewhat extended plan, indicated by its title Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Poggendorff was admirably qualified for the post which he thus attained. He had an extraordinary memory, well-stored with scientific knowledge, both moderr and historical, which served him in good stead in the critical part of his editorial duty. He had a cool and impartial judgment, ...with a strong preference for facts as against theory of the speculative kind at least, and was able to throw himself into the spirit of modern experimental science, represented in the early part of his editorial career by such great names as Berzelius, Faraday, Brewster, Fresnel, Régnault. He also possessed in more than German measure the German virtue of orderliness in the arrangement of knowledge and in the conduct of business. To this he added an engaging geniality of manner and much tact in dealing with men; so marked in fact was this part of his character that, notwithstanding his somewhat trying position, he never during his long life was involved in anything that could be fairly called a literary quarrel. These qualities of its editor soon made Poggendorff's Annalen the foremost scientific journal in Europe. He collected around him all the eminent seien-tific men of his own country, and he managed, either through original contributions or by translations of memoirs of approved value already printed, to secure for many years an adequate representation of the scientific work of other lands. So true is this that, for years after the beginning of Poggendorff’s editorship, the tables of contents of his annual volumes read like an index of the history of physical science.
In the course of his fifty-two years’ editorship of the Annalen Poggendorfi could not fail to acquire an unusual acquaintance with the labours of modern men of science. This knowledge, joined to what he had gathered by historical reading of equally unusual extent, he carefully digested and gave to the world in his Biographisch-literarisches Handbuch zur Geschichte der Exacten Wissenschaften, containing notices of the lives and labours of mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, chemists, mineralogists, geologists, <fcc., of all peoples and all ages. The two volumes of this work contain an astounding collection of facts invaluable to the scientific biographer and historian; they form in fact the basis of the yet unwritten history of physical science. We possess a small fragment of such a history in the form of lectures delivered by Poggendorfi himself at Berlin; and probably he had contemplated at one time writing a continuous narrative; but even his long life was too short for the double task of collecting and using the material.
Poggendorfi was a physicist of high although not of the very highest rank. He wàs wanting in mathematical ability, and never displayed in any remarkable degree the still more important power of scientific generalization, which, whether accompanied by mathematical skill or not, never fails to mark the highest genius in physical science. He was, however, an able and conscientious experimenter. He was very fertile and ingenious in devising physical apparatus, and contributed greatly in the earlier part of his life to enrich the resources of experimental science. Contemporaneously with Schweigger, he succeeded in greatly increasing the sensitiveness of the galvanometer by introducing the multiplying coil, and he made important improvements on that particular type of this instrument which is usually called the sine galvanometer. To him (according to Wiedemann) we owe the use of binding screws in most of their various forms. He invented the “Inversor” for rapidly alternating the direction of a voltaic current, and the “Wippe” for throwing a number of voltaic or electrolytic cells suddenly into “series” or into “multiple arc”; and to him is due the suggestion of the telescope and mirror method for reading galvanometers and other physical instruments, a device which has proved very valuable in all branches of physical science.
Poggendorff’s contributions to physics were published for the most part in his own journal. They form an important part of the scientific work of the 19th century; but it would be difficult in a few words to characterize them inasmuch as they do not constitute a single coherent group or even a few coherent groups of connected researches. By far the greater and more important part of his work related to electricity and magnetism. As specimens we may mention his investigations into the working of Holtz’s machines, and his variations on their construction; his researches on the resistance and electromotive force of electrolytic cells, along with which ought to be noticed his admirable method of comparing electromotive forces by “compensation”; and finally his researches on magnetism and diamagnetism.
Poggendorff’s literary and scientific reputation speedily brought him honourable recognition. In 1830 he was made royal professor and in 1834 Hon. Ph.D. and extraordinary professor in the university of Berlin, and in 1839 member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He ultimately became a member of many foreign societies, and received more than the usual share of the orders bestowed by Continental nations for scientific merit. During his lifetime many offers of ordinary professorships were made to him, but he declined them all, devoting himself to his duties as editor of the Annalen, and to the pursuit of his scientific researches. He died at Berlin on January 24, 1877.
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