(meteorobs) Fwd: 250th Birthday of Ernst F.F. Chladni

[George Gliba]

Meteorobs Folks,

Thanks to Thomas Ashcraft  for his note on the 52nd anniversary
today of the only confirmed meteorite strike on a human, when poor
Ann Hodges was hit by a meteorite in her home, that came crashing
through her roof in Sylacauga, Alabama!

Interestingly,  today is also another  important day in meteorite history.
It is the 250th birthday of Ernst F.F. Chladni, the father of the science
of meteoritics!

Below is a partial post from the meteorite-list today by Chladni  heirs,
Stefan, Martin & Andi:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Chladni was born on 30th of November 1756 in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt.
He grew up in relatively narrow circumstance, his father was dean of the
local faculty of laws, rigorously educating him for a safe life-time job as
jurist. Thus, despite his affinity to natural sciences he absolved a study
of laws and philosophy. Shortly after his exams his father died and Chladni
came to a plucky decision and sat at nought the comfort perspective to work
as jurist and planned to dedicate his life to science.

He jobbed in giving lectures in science and mathematics at the 
university of
Wittenberg, but because the payments were meager, nor any regular 
employment
in sight, he set his mind on inventing and discovering something new and
chose for that the field of acoustics as he had also a foible for music,
although he hadn't any lessons in music before he was 19.

Immediately as it should be with a genius he found his famous figures of
sound and invented several new musical instruments. In 1787 he published 
his
first important work: "Discoveries about the Theory of Sound".

He improved his new instrument, the Euphone, until it was ready for his
purposes, to accentuate his planned lectures for his Road Show.
He bought a cart et voila then he was on the road for the rest of his life.

He travelled through whole Europe, giving cycles of lectures for the bread
and butter, maintained his studies in hunting for rare scientific works in
the local libraries and corresponded with and met the great savants of 
these
times like Humboldt, Goethe, Lichtenberg, Schreibers, Laplace...

His best guest performances he had once in 1817 in Hamburg, where he acted
out in 3 cycles a 12 lectures and 1808 when he lectured to Napoleon, who
rewarded him with 6000 Francs (very fair, because later during the
liberation wars, his little home near Wittenberg planned for retirement
burned down).

Chladni, if you ask a physicist today, is known as the pioneer and 
father of
modern acoustics and not so much because of the discovery about the true
nature of meteorites and indeed the acoustics were always Chladni's main
occupation.

In 1802 he published his epoch making book "Die Akustik", Napoleon's 
cash he
used for publishing an enlarged edition in French in 1809.

The first contact with the ideas about meteorites he had in 1793, when he
met Lichtenberg. It took only one year then, until Chladni published his 
for
us so famous treaty: "Über den Urpsrung der von Pallas gefundenen und
anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen".
(About the Origin of the Pallas-iron and similar masses).

His theory about the extraterrestrial origin of the meteorites stayed
disregarded until the large shower of L'Aigle in 1803.

Nevertheless meteorites were his obsession, on his travels he assembled a
collection of meteorites in buying, swapping and by donations and 
started to
collect all reports about fireballs, falls and stones in the libraries of
the cities, he was coming through.

In the period from 1816 to 1819 he planned his routes so, that he was able
to visit as much meteorites as possible and from 1816 on, meteorites,
together with the demonstrative material from his collection, were a topic
in his popular lectures.

Result of his researches was his comprehensive book (434pages) of 1819:
"Über Feuermeteore und über die mit denselben herabgefallenen Massen".
(About the fiery meteors and the masses which felt with them (or so)).

All his life long Chladni was yearning for a regular employment and 
although
he had prominent interceders, never such a position was grated to him, so
that he had to carry on with his burdensome life as a scientific nomad.

At the age of 70 years, he died on 3rd of April 1827 on the road in a motel
in Wroclaw. The exact place of his grave is forgotten.

By will Chladni disposed of his meteorite collection to the museum in
Berlin, where today the largest part of it rots somewhere in some 
drawers in
stack. Ooops, not to be unfair - I strongly hope, that the museum opened a
special exhibition for Chladni's 250th Birthday, but can't find nothing in
the internet. (So if you haven't a special Chladni Show there, shame on 
you!)
Chladni was the first one, who popularized meteorites to a broad audience.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^