OTTO GUERICKE 



1602-1686 



This distinguished investigator, who is well-known as the 

 inventor of the air-pump and Burgomaster of Magdeburg, 

 began his dialogues with nature almost without any equip- 

 ment of learning, in experiments thought out by himself, 

 which in many directions carried him beyond this time, and 

 deep into hitherto unexplored regions. But the mere in- 

 vention of air-pump has little to do with his right to rank 

 among the great men of science; this depends rather on the 

 way in which he used that instrument to put questions to 

 nature, the answers to which could not possibly have been 

 found without its assistance; and he scarcely ever ceased his 

 efforts until each question was settled as far as was possible 

 at that time. The fact that he had a taste for carrying out 

 his experiments on a somewhat large scale, as with the 

 'Magdeburg Hemispheres,' made them all the more impres- 

 sive to his contemporaries, but also resulted in effects, as in 

 the case of the experiments with an electrical machine, which 

 would not have been noticed had the scale been smaller. A 

 very sympathetic trait of character in this man, who almost 

 throughout his life was a leader among his fellow-citizens, 

 was his pleasure in the astonishment of the uninitiated, when 

 he made the effects of nature seen or felt by means of his 

 apparatus; the same apparatus which had also revealed to 

 him marvels which not everyone could appreciate as he 

 could. In this way Guericke was unique of his kind. 



The descendant of a highly-esteemed senatorial and pat- 

 rician family of Magdeburg, young Guericke was destined for 

 the study of law, which he began at the age of fifteen years at 

 the university of Leipzig, continued at Helmstedt and Jena, 

 and finished at the age of twenty-one in Leyden. At the 

 latter university he also had the opportunity of hearing 

 lectures on science and mathematics, which, in the midst of 



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