Heinrich Gustav Magnus

Heinrich Gustav Magnus (1802 to 1870) was a German experimental scientist who did not use his first given name and was known throughout his life as Gustav Magnus. Born in Berlin to a wealthy Jewish merchant family, he received private instruction in mathematics and natural science, studied chemistry and physics at the University of Berlin from 1822 to 1827 and obtained a doctorate in 1827 with a dissertation on tellurium under Eilhard Mitscherlich. He then worked for a year in Jons Jakob Berzelius's laboratory in Stockholm and a year in Paris in the laboratory of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thenard. His training was mostly in chemistry but his later research was mostly in physics. He became lecturer in physics and technology at the University of Berlin in 1831, assistant professor in 1834 and full professor in 1845, and was later dean of the faculty. He is remembered as much for his laboratory teaching, in one of the best equipped laboratories in the world, and his weekly colloquies on physical questions as for his original research.