Born Mülhausen, (Mulhouse, Haut‐Rhin), France, 26 August 1728
Died Berlin, (Germany), 25 September 1777
Johann Lambert was a physicist known for pioneering work in photometry and in astronomy for his ideas of the nature of the Milky Way. In physics, Lambert is remembered by the unit for illumination density and a number of laws that bear his name.
Lambert was born the son of Lukas Lambert, a tailor, and Elisabeth Schmerber. The family lived in very modest if not poor conditions. He had to help his father and at the age of 12 was taken out of school to learn the trade. Instead, his younger brother became a tailor, leaving Lambert time for private study of literature, the Latin and French languages, calculus, and elementary sciences. About this time, he became interested in astronomy and started to observe the sky.
Lambert gained employment from the Mulhouse town chronicler named Reber for a modest income, and in 1743 he became a bookkeeper for an ironworks at Seppois. He observed the...
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Selected References
Jackisch, Gerhard (1979). Johann Heinrich Lamberts “Cosmologische Briefe.” Berlin: Akademie‐Verlag.
Löwenhaupt, Friedrich (ed.) (1943). Johann Heinrich Lambert: Leistung und Leben. Mulhouse: Braun.
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Frommert, H. (2007). Lambert, Johann Heinrich [Jean Henry]. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_816
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