Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 July 1742 |
| Died | 24 February 1799 (aged 56) Göttingen, Electorate of Hanover, Holy Roman Empire |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen (1763–67) |
| Known for | Lichtenberg figures |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Scientist, satirist, aphorist |
| Institutions | University of Göttingen |
| Doctoral advisor | Abraham Gotthelf Kästner |
| Doctoral students | Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes Johann Tobias Mayer Ernst Chladni |
| Other notable students | Alexander von Humboldt |
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German: [ˈlɪçtn̩bɛʁk]; 1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. He was the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics. He is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modelled on the English bookkeeping term "waste books" or "scrapbooks", and for his discovery of the tree-like electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures.