Karl Christian von Langsdorf

Karl Christian von Langsdorf (18 May 1757 to 10 June 1834), also written Carl Christian von Langsdorff, was a German mathematician, geologist, natural scientist and engineer, born in Nauheim. He studied philosophy, law and mathematics at Göttingen under Abraham Gotthelf Kästner and then at Giessen, trained in the saltworks of Hesse and Ansbach, and took his doctorate at Erfurt in 1781. After a career in administration he became professor of mechanical engineering at Erlangen in 1798, where he examined the young Georg Ohm, and in 1803 he accepted a post at Vilnius University, where he and his family were raised to the hereditary nobility of the Russian Empire. From 1806 until his death he was professor of mathematics at Heidelberg. His books covered hydraulics, machine theory, the theory of heat, the foundations of the differential calculus and arithmetic applied to mortality and population, and his students included Georg Ohm, Martin Ohm and Christian Ernst Wendt.