Abstract
ON Aug. 28 occurs the bicentenary of the birth of Johann Heinrich Lambert, one of the most industrious and interesting mathematicians and natural philosophers of the eighteenth century. Born at Miihlhausen, Alsace, of French extraction, Lambert was in turn tailor's apprentice, clerk, bookkeeper, secretary, and tutor, and while engaged as the latter travelled and made the acquaintance of many learned men. From 1764 until his death on Sept. 25, 1772, he was a protégé of Frederick the Great and was one of that group of learned men who were attracted to Berlin and given a pension as a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Lambert's industry was almost incredible. He made inquiries into and wrote upon many branches of physics, mathematics, and astronomy, and was much given to speculation. Of his “Cosmologische Breife” Miss Clerke said: “The conceptions of this remarkable man were grandiose, his intuitions bold, his views on some points a singular anticipation of subsequent discoveries. The sidereal world presented itself to him as a hierachy of systems, starting from the planetary scheme, rising to throngs of suns within the circuit of the Milky Way—the ‘ecliptic of the stars’ as he phrased it—expanding to include groups of many Milky Ways; these again combining to form the unit of a higher order of assemblage, and so onwards and upwards until the mind reels and sinks before the immensity of the contemplated creations.”
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News and Views. Nature 122, 284–287 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122284a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122284a0