Lambert: self‐taught physicist
DOI: 10.1063/1.3037708
He was a physicist (Lambert’s cosine law in optics, for example); a mathematician; a cosmologist (Did he anticipate the black holes of today?); but above all Johann Heinrich Lambert was a logician. “He… examined with the same rules the most trivial incidents of domestic life as well as the problems and demonstrations of science. A hole in his stocking made him conjure up a syllogism…, the leg of a chair prompted him to construct a hypothesis… All things presented themselves to his mind in the garment of logic…” Thus one colleague portrayed Lambert, the bicentennial of whose death is being commemorated this month. Another contemporary described him as a “dissertation‐machine”—and even Lambert himself once referred to his head as a machine.
References
1. M. Graf, in Johann Heinrich Lambert nach seinem Leben und Wirken (D. Huber, ed.), Schweighauser, Basel (1829).
2. J. H. Lambert Cosmological Letters on the Arrangement of the World‐Edifice (trans. by S. L. Jaki of Cosmologische Briefe), Science History, New York (1976).
3. K. Bopp, in Sitzungsber, Heidelberger Akad. Wiss., 18. Abh., Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (1928), page 29.
4. R. Wolf, Biographien zur Kulturgeschichte der Schweiz. Dritter Cyclus, Orell and Fuszli, Zurich (1860), page 339.
5. J. Lalande, Bibliographie astronomique, Imprimerie de la République, Paris (1803), page 551.
6. J. H. Lambert, in Nouv. Mém. Acad. Roy. Berlin (1779), page 247.
7. Reference 4, page 354.
8. J. H. Lambert, in Leipziger Mag. reine angew. Math. (1786), pages 137, 325, 350.
9. Reference 2, pages 56, 140, 142, 160, 166, 216.
10. Theories of the Universe: From Babylonian Myth to Modern Science (M. K. Munitz, ed.), The Free Press, New York (1957), page 145.
11. E. Halley, Phil. Trans. 21, 1882 (1705);
reprinted in reference 2.12. D. Arago, Astronomie populaire, volume 2, Gide, Paris (1857–58), page 356.
13. S. L. Jaki, The Milky Way: An Elusive Road for Science, Science History, New York (1972), page 199.
14. S. L. Jaki, The Paradox of Olbers’ Paradox Herder & Herder, New York (1969), page 124.
15. A. Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (R. W. Lawson, trans.), Crown, New York (1961), page 106.
16. C. W. Misner, K. S. Thorne, J. A. Wheeler, Gravitation, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco (1973), page 623.
17. S. W. Hawking, G. F. R. Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space‐Time, Cambridge, U.P. (1973), page 365.
18. A. S. Eddington, The Internal Constitution of the Stars, Cambridge U.P. (1926), page 6.
19. S. L. Jaki, Am. J. Phys. 44, 4 (1976).https://doi.org/AJPIAS
More about the Authors
Stanley L. Jaki. Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.
