Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, who lived from 1651 to 1708, was a German mathematician, physicist, physician and philosopher who introduced the Tschirnhaus transformation, which removes intermediate terms from an algebraic equation, and who is considered by some to be the inventor of European porcelain. He attended the Gymnasium at Gorlitz, studied mathematics, philosophy and medicine at the University of Leiden, served in the army of Holland and travelled through France, Italy and Switzerland, meeting Spinoza, Huygens, Newton and Leibniz, and he became a member of the Academie Royale des Sciences in Paris. He worked out the theory of catacaustics, submitted one of five solutions to Johann Bernoulli's brachistochrone problem, and built burning glasses and lenses at a glassworks in Saxony. From 1704 he supervised the alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger, and his experiments with silicates and earths led toward Saxon porcelain.