Gottfried Heinsius

Gottfried Heinsius (April, 1709 – May 21, 1769) was a German mathematician, geographer and astronomer.^[1]

Gottfried Heinsius, engraving, 1754

Illustration about Observationes circa phasin [!] Saturni rotundam from Acta Eruditorum, 1761

Illustration about Diiudicatio [!] casuum determinatorum... from Acta Eruditorum, 1756

He was born near Naumburg and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1733 from the University of Leipzig with a dissertation on De viribus motricibus.^[2] Later he became professor of mathematics at the same institution. Professor Heinsius may have been the first to publish an announcement about the return of Halley's comet in 1759.^[3] From 1736–43 he taught in St. Petersburg with Leonhard Euler and was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.^[4] While in Russia, he was given the task to provide the Russian Tsar Ivan VI with a horoscope.^[4] He died in Leipzig. The crater Heinsius on the Moon is named after him.

References

1. Heinsius, Stephan (2000-04-29). "Gottfried Heinsius". Retrieved 2008-12-05.
2. Gottfried Heinsius at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
3. Leverington, David (2003). Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Astronomy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 135–136. ISBN 0-521-80840-5.
4. Calinger, Ronald (May 1996). "Leonhard Euler: The First St. Petersburg Years (1727–1741)". Historia Mathematica. 23 (2): 121–166. doi:10.1006/hmat.1996.0015.