Due to Weber’s age and previous position as assistant professor in Halle, Gauss felt that he could not immediately enter the academic senate, and that perhaps he should not be given administrative duties. He wrote that if he had made any error in the memorandum it was sine ira et studio.
As a résumé in nuce, Gauss thus expressed his preference: He voted for Bohnenberger if the officials desired a sixty-year-old man and did not object to the high salary necessary to get him. He voted for Gerling if the authorities placed the main emphasis on strengthening the faculty and the senate, implying administrative ability. He voted for Weber if the officials especially took into account genius and future productive research. In closing. Gauss drew attention to the fact that Seeber had already applied for the position. On January 27, 1831, Gauss had already told Weber that it would be proper for him to call the attention of the authorities to his qualifications.
On April 29, 1831, Weber was offered the position as full professor of physics at Göttingen, which he accepted on May 14. On July 5, Gauss wrote a letter to Weber congratulating him and expressing great happiness at his coming to Göttingen. The first order of business after his arrival was the purchase of instruments and equipment for the physics laboratory, which stood where part of the university library is located today. He was also busy with the preparation of his lectures.
From the very first, an intimate friendship, both scientific and personal, sprang up between Gauss and Weber. He was a frequent dinner guest in Gauss’ home, who was also frequently a guest in Weber’s home.37 The only other person with whom Gauss enjoyed so deep a friendship was Bolyai. In a letter to their brother Ernst Heinrich dated June 2, 1832, Wilhelm’s sister, Lina, who kept house for him, complained about the frequent and in part unexpected dinner invitations he extended to Gauss. She wrote:
Wilhelm can enjoy Gauss every day as long as he desires. Gauss lives a very lonely life, and Wilhelm is welcome at any hour. Gauss is such a socially trained man that in my presence he never talks of learned things and demands that I shall be present; he has talked with us from 12 to 5 o’clock on all kinds of matters. Recently Wilhelm had Hofrat Gauss for dinner three days in succession (his daughters are away on a trip).
Friends of Weber repeatedly expressed the view that he stood too much in the shadow of Gauss. It is incorrect to believe that Gauss in any way belittled Weber’s work. His character was too high above such petty weaknesses of human nature. He always accepted Weber as an equal in research, a distinguished scientist, and a dear personal comrade. His letters show that he was unhappy in the years Weber was away from Göttingen. They made a perfect working team and complemented each other. Weber gave Gauss the stimulus for work in physics and was more of an experimenter, whereas Gauss leaned more to the theoretical development or mathematical side. Gauss was always making efforts to gain more recognition for Weber. The relationship between the two was at all times exceedingly harmonious. Gauss usually referred to Weber as “Friend Weber.” In view of the great difference in age, it would not be amiss to think of Gauss acting as a father to Weber.
At the time of Weber’s arrival in Göttingen, political disturbances were still in the air, a consequence of the Paris Revolution of July, 1830. The professors did not seem much concerned, even though the university’s enrollment had decreased by six hundred students. The Hanoverian government provided the university with good finances, but at the time was politically reactionary. A main source of agitation centered around the preference the nobility enjoyed in the filling of top government jobs. Events in Paris accentuated this. The chief target of liberals was Count Münster, who in London exercised a despotic control over the Hanoverian territories. Matters came to a head when a man named von der Knesebeck published a song of praise of the nobility and called it the only support of the throne. His windows were broken and he was chased out of Göttingen. A political pamphlet by a young professor named Ahrens was denied the permission necessary for publication. Furthermore, the city administration was in incompetent hands, and the citizens had waited a long time for a new city charter.
On January 18, 1831, armed citizens and students moved on the city hall. The rebels occupied the city hall, dissolved the regular council, and set up an emergency common council. More students and citizens joined the movement, but the university merely looked on and did nothing. Some students stormed two university buildings, searching for arms. The students looked on the whole affair as a fine prank; finally classes were temporarily closed and the students sent home.
The new government sent a delegation to Hanover, in order to ally itself with the kingdom. The Duke of Cambridge demanded unconditional subjection. In mid-January seven or eight thousand men under the command of General von der Busche approached the city, and on the fifteenth he sent an ultimatum to the city. On the evening of that day the regular authorities were in full control.
This little drama lasted exactly eight days, yet early in February Count Münster had to resign. As a pronounced Tory he did not want to support the new laws of 1831 and 1833. King William IV appointed the Duke of Cambridge, Adolf Friedrich, a Göttingen alumnus, vice-regent. Preparations were now under way for the separation of Hanover from England. A great blunder was committed in not insisting on the legally necessary agreement of Duke Ernst August of Cumberland, successor to the throne, to the new constitution of 1833, We shall soon see how serious this oversight was.
Gauss’ devoted pupil and friend C. L. Gerling, now professor of physics in Marburg, wrote him a letter of inquiry and concern, as soon as he heard of the rebellion in Göttingen. Other friends of Gauss wrote in the same vein. His reply to Gerling, dated January 29, 1831, is illuminating:
I thank you very heartily, my dear Gerling, for your friendly sympathetic letter. Basically I am little touched directly by the local events; indirectly up until now mainly only by the difficult communication with the physician, since in the last three or four days no carriages could come out or go in; communication for unsuspected pedestrians has never been interrupted. Unfortunately my domestic suffering has been very much increased in the last three or four weeks by the complete bedfastness and increasing weakness of my wife, as well as by several added circumstances, namely also through the difficulty of care of the poor sick one. My oldest daughter and my mother-in-law, for reasons which are partly obvious, can do little or nothing in this matter. My youngest daughter accomplishes uncommonly much, but of course besides our maids is no longer sufficient and the sick one could not allow strangers around her. For a long time I have urged her to try to get again the young woman whom you remember having seen in my house as our cook, and who a year ago was forced to leave it owing to illness; since then she has been keeping house for a widowed relative in Osterode, but has always kept a great attachment for my house, in which she lived almost seven years, but all my urging was in vain. On the morning of the twenty-fourth my wife awakened me before dawn; one of our maids had committed a crude bit of carelessness in the night, whereby the former had come into direct danger to life, and had thereby ripened the wish (long cherished but not confessed) to have our Hauerschildt here as quickly as possible. I at once took post horses and in the evening she was here. She herself had been quite willing immediately, but her relative was somewhat surprised and was probably left in the opinion that we were talking only of a short leave of absence. Here we soon agreed, however, if she was to be truly useful, she should arrange her affairs in Osterode for an indefinite absence, which might not be easy. She therefore returned there on the 27th; I gave her a letter to her relative, in which I offered all my eloquence to move him to agreement, and we expect her back on the 30th, if it is successful, but, as you can imagine, with great anxiety, since the weakness of the poor sick one has increased.
I wish to remark that, in so far as I found out in Osterode, the disturbances there were basically very unimportant, or rather, before they became important, they were immediately suppressed. As soon as the two rabble-rousing lawyer
s were led away, it was over, and when the local disturbances caused the calling away of troops from Osterode, it was found sufficient to leave 60 men there. In Göttingen the great number of troops (perhaps 4,000 to 5,000 men) remained only several days; afterward the greater part was again moved out. Now, 1,600 to 1,700 men may be here; in Osterode when I was there, perhaps nearly 300. May heaven preserve peace in Frankfurt and peace in the complicated relations with Belgium, then everything will straighten out quietly among us, I hope.
Miss Hauerschildt did, after some delay, return, but Gauss was continually afraid that her relative would insist that she resume her place in Osterode. It meant much to Gauss to have her in the household. Unfortunately she was not entirely well herself and could not do as much as formerly, which was desired.
Gauss’ daughter Minna at an early age had candidates for her hand. He often said that she was the image of her mother, yet in mentality she was similar to Gauss, and writers feel that she was his favorite child. Alexander von Humboldt considered her beautiful, and we know that she had a pleasant personality. She helped in the nursing of Frau Minna, her stepmother, corresponded with her father during his absence from home, did part of the housework, and helped care for her grandmother Gauss and her younger sister, Therese.
The last of February, 1830, Minna became engaged to Georg Heinrich August von Ewald (1803–1875), young theologian and professor of Oriental languages at Göttingen. Gauss was greatly pleased by the match; he esteemed Ewald very highly both as man and scholar, and their relations were always most cordial and intimate. The wedding occurred at Grone near Göttingen on September 15, 1830. Ewald was born in Göttingen as the son of a linen weaver who had migrated from Brunswick. In spite of his youth he was already a scholar of reputation, and known as a man of strong moral volition and a pronounced sense of justice. Ewald revered Gauss, and used to say that his early married years in Göttingen were the happiest of his life. There was one sad feature of the marriage, however; almost from the start Minna began to have lung trouble, perhaps contracted in the care of her stepmother. There were no children of the marriage.
Ewald had many interests and liked to converse with Gauss about them. He had a hobby of Oriental numismatics, and the university still has a collection which was in his care. The history of ancient Persian religion and the origin of the Afghans attracted his attention. His interest extended from Hebrew to Chinese, and he was the first person to teach Sanscrit in Göttingen. His monumental History of the People of Israel was the result of thirty years’ labor. His most enduring work was in Old Testament exegesis and Hebrew grammar, as well, of course, as the history of Israel just mentioned. Ewald turned out a large number of distinguished pupils in his field, including many in Britain. He visited England in 1838 and 1862, France and Italy in 1829 and 1836. In 1837, aided by other Orientalists, he founded the valuable periodical Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, which prepared the way for the formation in 1845 of the German Oriental Society.
XII
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The Electromagnetic Telegraph
The first mention of the telegraph occurs in a letter which Gauss wrote to his friend the astronomer Olbers in Bremen, dated November 20, 1833:
I don’t remember my having made any previous mention to you of an astonishing piece of mechanism that we have devised. It consists of a galvanic circuit conducted through wires stretched through the air over the houses up to the steeple of St. John’s Church and down again, and connecting the observatory with the physics laboratory, which is under the direction of Weber. The entire length of wire may be computed at about eight thousand feet; both ends of the wire are connected with a multiplicator, the one at my end consisting of 170, that in Weber’s laboratory of 50, coils of wire each wound around a one-pound magnet suspended according to a method which I have devised. By a simple contrivance—which I have named a commutator—I can reverse the current instantaneously. Carefully operating my voltaic pile, I can cause so violent a motion of the needle in the laboratory to take place that it strikes a bell, the sound of which is audible in the adjoining room. This serves merely as an amusement. Our aim is to display the movements with the utmost accuracy. We have already made use of this apparatus for telegraphic experiments, which have resulted successfully in the transmission of entire words and small phrases. This method of telegraphing has the advantage of being quite independent of either daytime or weather; the ones who receive it remain in their rooms, and if they desire it, with the shutters drawn. The employment of sufficiently stout wires, I feel convinced, would enable us to telegraph with but a single tap from Göttingen to Hanover, or from Hanover to Bremen.
Gauss gave first public notice of the telegraph in the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, issue of August 9, 1834. He gives detailed information about the “great galvanic circuit” between the physics laboratory and the observatory, to which the new magnetic observatory was connected, and emphasizes that this “unique setup” is due to Weber. The two had begun their electrical measurements on October 21, 1832. Gauss ordered magnetometers of varying size, from which he proceeded to larger magnets, and thus a number of galvanometers of varying size and construction came into being, although we do not know which ones were finally used in telegraphing. They were all to be used for this purpose, but the two scientists realized that the apparatus with the smallest magnets was best adapted for telegraphing on account of the magnets’ small period of oscillation.
It is reported that the first words sent on the telegraph were: Michelmann kommt. Michelmann was a servant who ran errands for Gauss and Weber. At first individual words were sent, and then complete sentences. The telegraph was operated once in the presence of the Duke of Cambridge, who seemed to take special interest in it.
Weber’s correspondence with the city council in April and May, 1833, gave exact information about the purpose and date of origin of the telegraph. At first Weber had used thin copper wire for the lines, which, however, did not stand up very well and had to be replaced by stronger wire. Even the latter did not resist weathering and was replaced by soft steel wire of one-millimeter strength. The lines existed until 1845, when they were destroyed by lightning on December 16. Gauss describes this incident thus, in a letter to Schumacher dated December 22:
The brief newspaper account (sent in by Listing) about the local thunderstorm of December 16 you have probably read. It is one of the strangest incidents which has ever occurred. You know that since 1833 the wire connection had existed between the observatory and the former physics laboratory (via the magnetic observatory, the obstetrical clinic, and St. John’s steeple). It was broken off six weeks ago between the magnetic observatory and the clinic by a windstorm, and the two ends of the wire on the other side, otherwise in the physics laboratory, ended in front of the window, since this laboratory has moved. Therefore four wires ran from St. John’s steeple, two to the clinic, and two to the window of the former physics laboratory. The very strong stroke of lightning on St. John’s steeple was probably distributed entirely on these wires, destroyed them all, partly into rather large, partly into rather small pieces, pieces of four to five inches in length and numerous little balls like poppy seed, all of which formed a brilliant rain of fire. I myself, at home, room darkened by shutters, did not see any of it, but merely heard the quite unexpected strong clap of thunder, which is in the immediate vicinity, as usual, quite simple, but this one I heard for some duration (about two seconds). No damage occurred except that a lady’s hat had two holes burnt in it by falling incandescent pieces of wire, but very probably the wires protected the steeple, which offers no lightning conductor, and, ignited, would perhaps have brought great danger to the city and library. Finally the electric matter in the subject lightning rods (library and obstetrical clinic) probably reached the ground, aside from a partial leaping off on a gutter of the pharmacy where the outer wall is somewhat torn open.
In a lecture before the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen on February
15, 1835, Gauss gave more detailed information on changes and improvements in the telegraphic equipment. Especially he mentioned his new apparatus for the generation of induced currents, the “inductor,” which he used not only for his scientific experiments but also as a substitute for the insufficiently constant voltaic elements in telegraphing.
In a letter to his friend and former pupil H. C. Schumacher in Altona, dated August 6, 1835, and in a memoir on terrestrial magnetism and the magnetometer published in Schumacher’s Jahrbuch (1836), Gauss expressed himself very optimistically about the future of telegraphy. Twenty years later these “fantasies” were in process of realization, and Gauss lived long enough to experience the beginning of it. In the letter he wrote:
In more propitious circumstances than mine, important applications of this method could no doubt be made, redounding to the advantage of society and exciting the wonder of the multitude. With an annual budget of 150 thalers for observatory and magnetic laboratory (I make this statement to you in strictest confidence), no grand experiments can be made. Could thousands of dollars be expended upon it, I believe electromagnetic telegraphy could be brought to a state of perfection and made to assume such proportions as almost to startle the imagination. The Emperor of Russia could transmit his orders in a minute, without intermediate stations, from Petersburg to Odessa, even per adventure, to Kiachta, if a copper wire of sufficient strength were conducted safely across and attached at both ends to powerful batteries, and with well-trained managers at both stations. I deem it not impossible to design an apparatus that would render a dispatch almost as mechanically as a carillon plays a tune that has been arranged for it. One hundred millions worth of copper wire would amply suffice for a continuous chain to reach the antipodes; for half the distance, a quarter as much, and so on, in proportion to the square of the distance. . . . That at least the first alphabet is easy to learn you can conclude from the fact that recently my daughter at once read correctly several letters without any instruction.
Carl Friedrich Gauss, Titan of Science_A Study of His Life and Work Page 18