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AUGUST FERDINAND MOBIUS (1790-1868)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 637 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AUGUST FERDINAND MOBIUS (1790-1868)  , German astronomer and mathematician, was born at Schulpforta on the 17th of November 1790 . At
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Leipzig,
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Gottingen and Halle he studied for four years, ultimately devoting himself to mathematics and astronomy . In 1815 he settled at Leipzig as privatdocent, and the next
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year became extraordinary professor of astronomy in connexion with the university . Later he was chosen director of the university
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observatory, which was erected (1818–1821) under his superintendence . In 1844 he was elected ordinary professor of higher
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mechanics and astronomy, a position which he held till his
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death on the 26th of September 1868 . His doctor's dissertation, De computandis occultationibus fixarum per planet as (Leipzig, 1815), established his reputation as a theoretical astronomer . Die Hauptsatze der Astronomie (1836), Die Elemente der Mechanik
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des Himmels (1843), may be noted amongst his other purely astronomical publications . Of more general
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interest, however, are his labours in pure mathematics, which appear for the most
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part in Crelle's Journal from 1828 to 1858 . These papers are chiefly geometrical, many of them being developments and applications of the methods laid down in his
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great
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work, Der barycentrische Calcul (Leipzig, 1827), which, as the name implies, is based upon the properties of the mean point or centre of mass (see ALGEBRA: Universal) . This work abounds in suggestions and foreshadowings of some of the most striking discoveries in more
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recent times—such, for example, as are contained in H . Grassmann's Ausdehnungslehre and
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Sir W . R .

Hamilton's
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Quaternions . MSbius must be regarded as one of the leaders in the introduction of the powerful methods of
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modern projective
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geometry . His Gesammelten Werke have been published in four volumes at Leipzig (1885-1887) .

End of Article: AUGUST FERDINAND MOBIUS (1790-1868)
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