Julius Plücker, his family and his academic years (Q2822646)

This article deals with the family background and the first studying years of Julius Plücker, a mathematician who the author describes as an open-minded researcher fond of traveling and whose scientific results are considered as partly better known and honored abroad than in Germany. In particular, the author points out that Plücker, born and grown up in a wealthy family in Elberfeld (nowadays a part of the city of Wuppertal), benefited from his social background on his way climbing up the ladder of German academia.NEWLINENEWLINETherefore, in the first sections, the author traces back Plücker's family roots until the end of the 17th century and explains that Plücker's talents for mathematics were already supported by his teacher Johann Friedrich Wilberg (1766--1846) at an early stage. Wilberg as well as Plücker's later teacher Carl Wilhelm Christian Kortum (1787--1859) at a grammar school in Düsseldorf had a long lasting influence on Plücker, who studied cameralistics, a classical subject in the 18th century for becoming state official, at the University of Heidelberg in 1819 and until 1822 at the universities of Bonn and Berlin.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the third section of his article, the author focuses on Plücker's dissertation in mathematics. Despite his graduation in cameralistics, in 1823, Plücker moved to Paris and listened to lectures at the École Polytechnique. The author points out that against the university's background of a profound tradition of classical geometry in particular and mathematics in general the student had finished his dissertation on analytical geometry. Plücker submitted his work at the University of Marburg. A decision which is in detail explained by his close relations to the academic community of Marburg and Bonn. The dissertation was accepted in August 1823 and, already in 1825, he returned for his habilitation lecture from Paris to Bonn.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the last part, the author finally describes briefly Plücker's research as associate professor in Halle (1832) as well as as full professor in Berlin (1833). He closes his analysis with a view on the mathematician's later work on experimental physics back at the University of Bonn to which he had returned in 1835.