Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim

Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim (1801 to 1869) was a German physicist, geographer and crystallographer, born in Brunswick into a Jewish family. He studied physics at Berlin, completing a dissertation on the theory of gases and vapors in 1823, and from 1827 taught physics, geography and mathematics at the University of Breslau, as assistant professor until 1850 and then as professor. His research centred on crystallography and the mathematical basis of crystal symmetry: by 1826 he was already describing crystal faces with the integer reciprocals of Weiss's coefficients, and he defined 32 point groups grouped into four crystal systems. He later derived 15 lattice types for crystals, which Auguste Bravais reduced to the 14 now called Bravais lattices. In geography his most famous work is the book Völkerkunde of 1852. After retiring he moved to Leipzig and then to Dresden, where he died.