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See also:KIRCHHOFF, GUSTAV See also:ROBERT (1824-1887) , See also:German physicist, was See also:born at See also:Konigsberg (See also:Prussia) on the 12th of See also:March 1824, and was educated at the university of his native See also:town, where he graduated Ph.D. in 1847. After acting as privat-docent at See also:Berlin for some See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time, he became extraordinary See also:professor of physics at See also:Breslau in 185o. Four years later he was appointed professor of physics at See also:Heidelberg, and in 1875 he was transferred to Berlin, where he died on the 17th of See also:October 1887. Kirchhoff's contributions to mathematical physics were numerous and important, his strength lying in his See also:powers of stating a new See also:physical problem in terms of See also:mathematics, not merely in working out the See also:solution after it had been so formulated. A number of his papers were concerned with See also:electrical questions. One of the earliest was devoted to electrical See also:conduction in a thin See also:plate, and especially in a circular one, and it also contained a theorem which enables the See also:distribution of currents in a network of conductors to be ascertained. Another discussed conduction in curved sheets; a third the distribution of See also:electricity in two influencing See also:spheres; a See also:fourth the deter-ruination of the See also:constant on which depends the intensity of induced currents; while others were devoted to See also:Ohm's See also:law, the See also:motion of electricity in submarine cables, induced See also:magnetism, &c. In other papers, again, various See also:miscellaneous topics were treated—the thermal conductivity of See also:iron, crystal-See also:line reflection and See also:refraction, certain propositions in the See also:thermodynamics of solution and See also:vaporization, &c. An important See also:part of his See also:work was contained in his Vorlesungen fiber mathematische Physik (1876), in which the principles of See also:dynamics, as well as various See also:special problems, were treated in a somewhat novel and See also:original manner. But his name is best known for the researches, experimental and mathematical, in See also:radiation which led him, in See also:company with R. W. von See also:Bunsen, to the development of spectrum See also:analysis as a See also:complete See also:system in 1859-186o. He can scarcely be called its inventor, for not only had many investigators already used the See also:prism as an See also:instrument of chemical inquiry, but considerable progress had been made towards the explanation of the principles upon which spectrum analysis rests. But to him belongs the merit of having, most probably without knowing what had already been done, enunciated a complete See also:account of its theory, and of thus having firmly established it as a means by which the chemical constituents of See also:celestial bodies can be discovered through the comparison of their spectra with those of the various elements that exist on this See also:earth.
End of Article: KIRCHHOFF, GUSTAV ROBERT (1824-1887)
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