Wilhelm Weber Biography
(Physicst)
Birthday: October 24, 1804 (Scorpio)
Born In: Wittenberg, Saxony, Holy Roman Empire
Wilhelm Eduard Weber, best remembered as the co-inventor of the first electromagnetic telegraph, was a 19th century German physicist born in Wittenberg. Later the family shifted to Halle, where he received his formal education. Starting his career as a Privatdozent at the University of Halle, he shifted to the University of Göttingen as Professor of Physics on the invitation of Carl Friedrich Gauss. There he collaborated with Gauss to develop the first practical long-distance telegraph. He lost his position when he, along with six others, protested against the King of Hanover’s move to revoke the constitution. Later, he was appointed as a Professor of Physics at the Leipzig University, but returned to Göttingen when the King was forced to retract his decisions. He devoted his later career to the study of electrodynamics and the electrical structure of matter. Collaborating with Rudolf Kohlrausch, he demonstrated that the number produced by the ratio of electrostatic to electromagnetic units matched the value of the then known speed of light. In addition, he also developed a number of devices, the most significant of them being the electrodynamometer.