Georg Friedrich von Reichenbach

Background

Georg Friedrich von Reichenbach was born on August 24, 1771 in Durlach, Baden, Germany. Reichenbach's father, Johann Christoph Reichenbach, was a master mechanic, and a master cannon-borer, who moved to Mannheim when Reichenbach was two, and became manager of the cannon-boring works there. His mother's name was Helene Pfetsch.

Education

Reichenbach’s education began in public school and in his father’s workshop. From 1786 to 1790 Reichenbach attended the new School of Army Engineers at Mannheim, where he received a sound introduction into science. His free time was spent at the elector’s observatory, where he learned a good deal of practical astronomy and perfected his skill in instrument making.

After his graduation, the elector, on Count Rumford’s recommendation, sent young Reichenbach to England to study modern engineering (1791-1793). He met Matthew Boulton, Watt, and Ramsden; made secret sketches of Watt’s latest engine; and supervised the construction of some large blast-furnace machinery.

Career

Upon his return from England, Reichenbach was commissioned an engineering officer in the Bavarian army. In this function, he improved ordnance design, installed cannon-boring facilities and musket factories, invented a rilled cannon, and occasionally served as assistant to Rumford. These duties did not prevent him, however, from engaging in a variety of other activities as well.

Reichenbach had recognized an acute demand for scientific instruments of high quality. Even the best German instruments, those of G. F. Brander and C. C. Höschel, were decidedly inferior to English-built ones. Since the precision of astronomical and geodetic instruments depended upon the exactness with which their scales were graduated, Reichenbach set out to invent the dividing machine that would be superior to the best existing one, that of Jesse Ramsden.

Having succeeded in making that crucial invention (1800), he and a partner established a small instrument shop in Munich, which in 1804 was expanded into the Mathematisch-Meehanisches Institut von Reichenbach, Utzschneider, und Liebherr; the third partner, Joseph von Utzschneider, was a prominent Bavarian statesman and entrepRenéur. Here Reichenbach built astronomical and surveying instruments that rapidly became famous for their precision and mechanical perfection, and were coveted and praised by such astronomers as Bessch Gauss, and Laplace. Aware of the limitations of their optical systems, Utzschneider and Reichenbach searched for a competent optician; in 1806 they found young Joseph Fraunhofer.

In 1809 Utzschneider, Reichenbach, and Fraunhofer founded a separate “optical institute” which was to supplement the older mechanical institute. Reichenbach and Fraunhofer’s collaboration resulted in the design of astronomical instruments of unprecedented power and precision which, in turn, led to spectacular advances in observational astronomy. The two institutes also assumed the role of a national training center for instrument makers; the excellence of German scientific instruments in the nineteenth century is thus directly related to Reichenbach’s initiative.

Reichenbach always had more than one project in hand at a time. While he was still building his most remarkable telescopes, he embarked on a venture that promised to fulfill an old ambition: the construction of large power machinery. In 1806 the Bavarian state, in order to increase the revenue from its saltworks, had decided to build a 108-kilometer pipeline to conduct brine from its Alpine origins to regions where fuel was more abundant.

For the first stage of the project (the line from Bad Reichenhall to Traunstein) Reichen-bach’s institute had to build four water-powered pumping stations. Reichenbach solved the problem with “water pressure engines” (reciprocating piston engines similar to steam engines) of new design which were running smoothly in 1808, a year after he had received the order.

In 1810 he completed the continuation of the line to Rosenheim. His crowning achievement was the third and final stage of the project, the line from Berehlesgaden to Bad Reichenhall. One of the two machines employed here had to overcome, in a single stage, a rise of over 1,200 feet. This machine, at the time considered the largest in the world, remained in continuous service from 1817 to 1958. Rcichenbach had designed his water-pressure engines on the basis of mathematical calculation. During their construction, which presented some unfamiliar problems, he improvised various new machining and iron-casting techniques.

In 1811 Reichenbach resigned from the Bavarian army with the rank of captain and was appointed Salinenrat (councilor of saltworks). In 1814 he dissolved his association with Utzschneider and Fraunhofer and formed another partnership. In 1820 Reichenbach left instrument making entirely, to become director of the Bavarian Central Bureau of Highways and Bridges. In this capacity he was engaged in the construction of high-pressure steam engines, cast-iron bridges, city water supplies, and gas lighting systems, and in the establishment of a polytechnical institute; most of these projects were interrupted by his death.

Achievements

• 

  Reichenbach was probably the greatest of the generation of engineers who initiated the industrialization of Germany. An original and versatile inventor, he contributed to many areas of technology and permanently shaped the design of scientific instruments and the construction of large hydraulic machinery.
  
  Reichenbach's principal achievement was the introduction into observatories of the meridian or transit circle, which combined the transit and the mural circle into one instrument. The transit circle in the form given it by Reichenbach had one finely divided circle attached to one end of the horizontal axis and was read by four verniers on an "alidade circle," the unaltered position of which was tested by a spirit level. The instrument came almost at once into universal use on the continent of Europe (the first one was made for F. W. Bessel in 1819), but in England the mural circle and transit instrument were not superseded for many years.
  
  Another Reichenbach's achievement was in engaging in the construction of a dividing engine, a machine used to mark off equal intervals accurately, usually on precision instruments.
  
  Also, in 1804 he was one of the founders of an instrument-making business in Munich, and in 1809 he helped establish at Benediktbeuern an optical works that was later moved to Munich.
  
  Reiehenbach’s contributions were fully recognized during his lifetime. He was knighted, received numerous medals, and was elected to the Academy of Sciences of Paris and also to that of Munich.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Georg von Reichenbach 1912

• Invention

  • Brine Pump

    (The machine pumped salt solution, brine, in a pipe from B...)

    1817

  • Theodolite

    (A theodolite was showing the altitude and azimuth scales ...)

    1805

  • Transit telescope

    (length of telescope 97 cm, diameter of object lens 8 cm)

    1841

• invetion

  • Repeating circle

    (Repeating circle equipped with an achromatic telescope, b...)

    1808

Membership

Georg Friedrich von Reichenbach was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and also of the Academy of Sciences of Munich.

Connections

Father:

Johann Christoph Reichenbach

Mother:

Helene Pfetsch

collaborator:

Joseph Liebherr

Reichenbach teamed up with a watch-maker Joseph Liebherr and Joseph von Utzschneider, Bavarian businessman and for a few years burgomaster in Munich, to set up in 1802 the Mathematisch-Mechanisches Institut von Reichenbach, Utzschneider und Liebherr in Münich.

collaborator:

Joseph von Utzschneider

1763 - 1840

collaborator:

Joseph von Fraunhofer

He started to collaborate with the Reichenbach's workshop, thereby improving the optical quality of the instruments. A few years later Reichenbach, Utzschneider and Fraunhofer founded another institute devoted exclusively to optics, though in 1814 Reichenbach left his partners to build a factory with Traugott Lebrecht Ertel.

Partner:

Traugott Lebrecht Ertel

1778-1858, in 1814 Reichenbach built a factory with Traugott Lebrecht Ertel.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 11
  1975