Tobias Mayer Biography

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Portrait of Tobias Mayer, Private-owned pastel painting.
Biography (Listen to text)

17.02.1723 Birth of Tobias Mayer in Marbach, Torgasse 13.

Tobias Mayer is the sixth child of the well-builder and wheel maker Tobias Mayer and his second wife Anna Catherina, Fink, born in Marbach am Neckar.

1723/24 Relocation of the Mayer family to Esslingen.

The family moved to Esslingen, because the father was hired there as a well master.

1729 – 1741 Visit of the German school and the Latin school in Esslingen; Death of the parents.

At first he did not like to go to school because he always had to copy writings and memorize. But learning was very easy for him.

After the death of his father on August 12, 1731, Tobias was just eight years old, the council of the city of Esslingen granted him shelter, food and clothing in the orphanage, while the mother worked in the hospital as a nurse. When Tobias was 14 years old (1737) his mother died.

1739 Map of Esslingen.

At age 16, Mayer drew the verifiable first, the imperial city Esslingen cartographically accurately recorded city map. Rector Salzmann ordered a copper engraving in Augsburg and on December 6, 1740, presented 50 copies to the city council. Tobias Mayer received two silver coins.

1741 Publication of a book on geometry and mathematics.

When he attended the fourth and highest grade of Latin school, Tobias Mayer published his first book on geometry.

1744-1746 Employee of Pfeffel-Verlag in Augsburg.

When Tobias Mayer was of age, he went to Augsburg and worked there as a script engraver.

1745 Publication of the Mathematical Atlas and a book on war architecture.

At the age of 22 Mayer published a comprehensive, 60 double-page textbook on mathematics, the „Mathematical Atlas“, for which he added 8 supplementary pages on higher mathematics after great sales success.

1746 -1751 employee of the map publisher Homanns-Erben in Nuremberg.

Publication of over 30 maps and various essays on astronomical problems, focus on lunar research.

1751 Marriage and acceptance of a professorship at the University of Göttingen combined with the management of the University Observatory.

Tobias Mayer married Maria Victoria Gnuege, with whom he had 8 children. He accepted the offer of a professorship at the University of Göttingen and moved there. As part of his teaching, he dealt mainly with fortification, physics, mathematics and astronomy.

Head of the Göttingen Observatory, then the most modern observatory in Europe.

1752 – 1756 Teaching and research at the University of Göttingen.

Numerous publications on longitude determination, geodetic measuring methods and measuring instruments, astronomy, geophysics, mathematics.

Application for the “price of the longitude” of the English Parliament (published in 1714).

1757 – 1762 Disruption of astronomical research due to the turmoil of the Seven Years War.

Publications on astronomy, measuring instruments, color theory and geomagnetism.

20.02.1762 Death by putrefaction fever (typhus).

On February 20, 1762 Tobias Mayer died at the age of 39 years in Göttingen from typhus. In the month of death, his last work appeared.

1765 – 1891 Posthumous award of a part of the British price for longitude, publication of numerous research results.

For his work on the exact determination of the geographical position at sea, his widow received a price of 3000 pounds from England (equivalent to about one million euros today).

During this time, numerous works by Tobias Mayer are published, including the famous moon map with latitude and longitude grid.

1960 Beginning of the „Mayer Renaissance“ by the Scottish scientist E. G. Forbes.

The Professor of the History of Natural Sciences at the University of Edinburgh has been dealing with Mayers literary since 1960, publishing Mayer’s „Unpublished Writings“ in 1972, and Mayer’s first biography in 1980 („Pioneer of enlightened science in Germany“).

1981 Foundation of the Tobias Mayer Association in Marbach, Torgasse 13.

Prof. Erwin Roth bought the birth house in 1980 and founded the „Tobias Mayer Museum Association“. Since 1991 Prof. Dr. Armin Hüttermann is leading the Association, from 1995 to 2016 there was a museum on the ground floor of the birth house. In 2018 the museum was reopened with an extension.

2018 Reopening of the Tobias Mayer Museum.

In the neighboring house lived until 2011, the apple farmer Hermann Breitenbücher. After his death, the Tobias-Mayer-Verein acquired the building and created a new building in the years 2015 to 2018, which complements the previous museum.