Background
Bartels was born in Brunswick, in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany), the son of pewterer Heinrich Elias Friedrich Bartels and his wife Johanna Christine Margarethe Köhler.
Bartels was born in Brunswick, in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany), the son of pewterer Heinrich Elias Friedrich Bartels and his wife Johanna Christine Margarethe Köhler.
University of Göttingen.
He was the tutor of Carl Friedrich Gauss in Brunswick and the educator of Lobachevsky at the University of Kazan. In his childhood he showed a great interest in mathematics. In 1783 he was employed as an assistant to the teacher Büttner in the Katherinenschule in Brunswick.
A friendship developed between Gauss and Bartels and they corresponded between 1799 and 1823.
From 23 August 1788 he was a visitor at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. On 23 October 1791 Bartels studied mathematics under Johann Friedrich Pfaff in Helmstedt and Abraham Gotthelf Kästner in Göttingen.
In the winter semester of 1793/1794 he studied Experimental Physics, Astronomy, Meteorology and Geology under Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. In 1800 he worked in Switzerland as Professor of Mathematics in Reichenau (Canton Graubünden).
In 1801 he was active in the cantonal school in Aarau.
The University of Jena promoted him to the Faculty of Philosophy in 1803. During his twelve years tenure he lectured on the History of Mathematics, Higher Arithmetic, Differential and Integral Calculus, Analytical Geometry and Trigonometry, Spherical Trigonometry, Analytical Mechanics and Astronomy. During this time he taught Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.
In 1821 he moved to the University of Dorpat, now Tartu, Estonia, where he founded the Centre for Differential geometry.
He remained at Dorpat until his death. He was appointed Privy Councillor in 1823.
He was also awarded high Russian honours. He died in Dorpat.
She bore Struve six children, the best known of which was Karl de Struve (1835 – 1907), who served successively as Russian ambassador to Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands.
From 1826 he was a corresponding member of the Saint St. Petersburg Academy of Science.