Leonhard Sohncke

Leonhard Sohncke (1842 to 1897) was a German mathematician, physicist and mineralogist, born in Halle, the son of a professor of mathematics, and died in Munich. He studied mathematics and sciences at Halle, taught at the Collegium Fridericianum in Königsberg until 1871 while writing a doctoral thesis in mathematics and continuing his studies at the University of Königsberg, where he qualified as a private lecturer in 1869 with a habilitation thesis in mineralogy. In 1871 he became professor of physics at the Polytechnical School in Karlsruhe, the first German Technische Hochschule, where he also headed the meteorological observatory of the Grand Duchy of Baden and was elected Director of the Institute in the academic year 1878 to 1879. In 1883 he went to the University of Jena as first director of its new institute of physics, and in 1886 he moved to the Technical University of Munich, where he worked until his death. He was a successful academic teacher.