Emil Lenz

Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz, usually cited as Emil Lenz, lived from 1804 to 1865 and was a Russian physicist of Baltic German descent, born in Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) in the Governorate of Livonia. He is best known for formulating Lenz's law in electrodynamics in 1834, and in 1842 he independently discovered the heating law now called the Joule-Lenz law. After studying chemistry and physics at the Imperial University of Dorpat he joined Otto von Kotzebue's third voyage around the world from 1823 to 1826, studying climatic conditions and the physical properties of seawater. He then worked at the University of St. Petersburg, where he was Dean of Mathematics and Physics from 1840 to 1863 and Rector from 1863 until his death, and he helped develop electroplating with his colleague Moritz von Jacobi. Physicists still use the symbol L for inductance in his honor.