Neumann's publications are not sufficient to give an adequate idea 

 of his life's work. As a teacher he exerted a wide-spread influence, 

 and the progress of physical science in Germany is largely indebted 

 to the stimulating influence which he exercised, especially with the 

 help of the Mathematisch-Physikalisches Seminar,' founded by him 

 in conjunction with Jacobi and Sohnke. The object of this institu- 

 tion was to supplement the teaching given in lectures, and to intro- 

 duce students into the methods of original research. Exercises were 

 set to the students by the directors of the seminar, and, as Neumann 

 himself explained, " In the choice of problems I laid stress on their 

 referring to points of practical importance, such as the application 

 of Gauss' theory of principal points and planes in a system of lenses ; 

 or that the selected exercise should lead students to an experimental 

 investigation of a problem which they had treated in a theoretical 

 manner." 



There was never, probably, a school of original research conducted 

 in so systematic a manner as this seminar, in which Neumann was 

 the leading spirit. Annual reports of the work done by each student 

 were sent in to the Prussian Minister of Education, and, occasionally, 

 money prizes were given for a research of special merit. An interest- 

 ing account of the history of this seminar is contained in a notice of 

 Neumann's life by P. Volkmann.* Its importance may be recognised 

 by the fact that Kirchhoff's first papers on the distribution of electric 

 conductors, and H. Wild's construction of his photometer and polari- 

 meter, figure amongst the direct results of the teaching given in the 

 seminar. Kirchhoff's great powers were soon recognised by Neumann, 

 and when, in the year 1846, Neumann had set as a special prize problem 

 " The determination of the constants on which the intensity of in- 

 duced currents depends," the prize was awarded to him for a research 

 which contained the first measurement of a resistance in electro-mag- 

 netic measure. Neumann's success as a teacher will be appreciated 

 by reference, in Volkmann's publication, to the doctor dissertations of 

 his pupils, which were carried out under his guidance.- Amongst the 

 students who flocked to hear his lectures at Konigsberg, we find 

 Borchardt, Durege, Lipschitz, Kirchhoff, Wild, C. Neumann, Clebsch, 

 Auwers, Quincke, and Voigt. 



Neumann was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 

 1862, a Corresponding Member of the French Academy in 1863, and 

 received the Copley Medal in the year 1887. 



A. S. 



* Leipzig (G-. Teubrier), 1896. I owe to this publication and to Mr. Voigt's 

 notice in 'Gottingen, Nachrichten,' 1895, p. 248, nearly all the information given in 

 the above obituary notice. 



VOL. LX, 



