Biography:Ferdinand Reich
Ferdinand Reich (19 February 1799 – 27 April 1882) was a German chemist who co-discovered indium in 1863 with Hieronymous Theodor Richter.
Reich was born in Bernburg, Anhalt-Bernburg and died in Freiberg. He was color blind, or could only see in whites and blacks, and that is why Theodor Richter became his science partner. Richter would examine the colors produced in reactions that they studied.
Reich and Richter ended up isolating the indium, creating a small supply, although it was later found in more regions. They isolated the indium at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Germany.
In 1803, Laplace and Gauss both derived that, if a heavy object is dropped from a height [math]\displaystyle{ h }[/math] at latitude [math]\displaystyle{ \Phi }[/math], and the earth rotates from west to east with angular velocity [math]\displaystyle{ \Omega }[/math], then the object would be deflected to the east by a distance of [math]\displaystyle{ d=2 / 3 \Omega \cos (\Phi) \sqrt{\left(2 h^3 / g\right)} }[/math]. In 1831, Reich set out to test this prediction by actually dropping objects in a mine pit (Drei-Brüder-Schacht, with latitude 50° 53′ 12.5″ N) 158.5 m deep, in Freiberg, Saxony, for 106 times. The average deflection is 2.84 cm to the east and 0.44 cm to the south. The eastward deflection is almost exactly equal to the theoretical value of 2.75 cm, but the southward deflection remains unexplained to this day.[1][2] The experiment is published in
- Fallversuche über die Umdrehung der Erde angestellt auf hohe Obergamtliche Anordnung in dem Dreibrüderschacht bei Freiberg, Digitized (published in 1832)
References
- ↑ Mantovani, Roberto (2019-12-27). "Before Foucault: The Proofs of the Earth’s Rotation". Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science (7). doi:10.24117/2526-2270.2019.i7.05. ISSN 2526-2270. https://periodicos02-des.cecom.ufmg.br/atualizacao/index.php/transversal/article/view/34845.
- ↑ Gerkema, Theo; Gostiaux, Louis (March 2012). "A brief history of the Coriolis force". Europhysics News 43 (2): 14–17. doi:10.1051/epn/2012202. ISSN 0531-7479. http://www.europhysicsnews.org/10.1051/epn/2012202.
Further reading
- Reich, F.; Richter, T. (1863). "Ueber das Indium". Journal für Praktische Chemie 90 (1): 172–176. doi:10.1002/prac.18630900122. https://zenodo.org/record/1427838.
- Reich, F.; Richter, T. (1864). "Ueber das Indium". Journal für Praktische Chemie 92 (1): 480–485. doi:10.1002/prac.18640920180.
- Weeks, Mary Elvira (1932). "The Discovery of the Elements: XIII. Some Spectroscopic Studies". Journal of Chemical Education 9 (8): 1413–1434. doi:10.1021/ed009p1413. Bibcode: 1932JChEd...9.1413W. http://search.jce.divched.org/JCEIndex/FMPro?-db=jceindex.fp5&-lay=wwwform&combo=weeks&-find=&-format=detail.html&-skip=27&-max=1&-token.2=27&-token.3=10. - subscription required
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