Muncke, Georg Wilhelm

views updated

MUNCKE, GEORG WILHELM

(b. Hillingsfeld, near Hameln, Germany, 28 November 1772; d. Grosskmehlen, Germany, 17 October 1847)

physics.

Muncke served as an overseer at the Georgianum in Hannover. In 1810 he became professor of physics at the University of Marburg, where he stayed until 1817, when he went to the University of Heidelberg to take up the professorship that he held until his death.

Muncke’s chief importance lies in his critical attitude toward much of the scientific speculation of his time, and in particular in his opposition to Kant’s dynamical theory of matter. He attributed the wide influence of Naturphilosophie in German science to Kant’s “mystical play with unknown forces,”and to the elaboration of Kant’s ideas by Fichte, Schelling, Ritter, Steffens, Oken, and Hegel. Muncke was himself an advocate of the atomic theory of matter and his views are explicitly stated in his books System der atomistischen Physik (1809) and Handbuch der Naturlehre (1829–1830).

Muncke also collaborated with Brandes, Gmelin, Horner, Pfaff, and Littrow in preparing the edition of Johann Gehler’s Physikalisches Wörterbuch pub- lished in Leipzig in eleven volumes (1825–1845). This work constitutes one of the best records of the state of the natural sciences in the first quarter of the nineteenth century; Muncke’s contribution consists of descriptions of individual physical subjects and an excellent, objective general discussion of current physical theories and knowledge.

Muncke’s own experimental results were trivial. He published a series of observations on the expansion and boiling of water, and he determined the densities of water, alcohol, and ether (1816). He adhered to the theory that the earth has four magnetic poles, and he explained Brownian movement as the passage of light and heat rays through the liquid medium.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Muncke’s works are System der atomistischen Physik (Hannover, 1809); Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1819–1820); Handbuch der Naturlehre, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1829–1830); Physicalische Abhandlungen. Ein Versuch zur Erweiterung der Naturkunde (Giessen, 1816); “Hypothesen zur Erklärung einiger räthselhafter Natur- phänomene,”in Journal für Chemie und Physik, 25 (1819), 17–28; “Versuche über den Elektromagnetismus zur Begründung einer genügenden Erklärung desselben,”in Annalen der Physik, 70 (1822), 141–174, 71 (1822), 20–38, 411–435; and “Ueber Robert Brown’s microscopische Beobachtungen,”ibid., 17 (1829), 159–176.