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Wilhelm WeberGerman physicist.
Date of Birth: 24.10.1804
Country:  Germany |
Content:
Biography of Wilhelm Weber
Early Life and EducationWilhelm Weber was born on October 24, 1804, in Wittenberg, Germany. He completed his studies at the University of Halle in 1826.
Academic Career
From 1831 to 1837, Weber served as a professor at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Göttingen. During this time, he, along with six other professors, protested against the suppression of constitutional rights by the King of Hanover. As a result, Weber was removed from his position in 1837. He spent several years giving private lessons and traveling.
In 1843, he became a professor at the University of Leipzig until 1849 when he returned to the University of Göttingen as a professor. Weber's main works focused on electromagnetism, as well as acoustics, heat, and molecular physics.
Contributions to Science
In 1825, Weber co-authored a treatise on wave motion with his brother, Ernst Weber. He observed sound interference in 1826 and proposed the idea of sound recording in 1830.
Weber collaborated with Carl Gauss on the development of methods and equipment for geomagnetic measurements. In 1833, they created the first electromagnetic telegraph in Germany. Starting from 1840, Weber worked on the development of electrostatic and magnetic units and the determination of their relationship. He formulated the law of interaction between moving charges, taking into account their relative velocity in 1846.
In 1856, together with Rudolf Kohlrausch, Weber determined the speed of light based on the ratio of the charge of a capacitor in electrostatic and magnetic units. The value they obtained coincided with the speed of light calculated from the optical experiments of Augustin-Jean Fresnel. This coincidence led James Clerk Maxwell to conclude that "light consists of transverse vibrations of the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."
Weber's works led to the independent determination of the unit of electric current in the electromagnetic system of units based on the magnitude of the magnetic field created by the current. The unit of magnetic flux is named after him.
