Georg Wilhelm Richmann
Georg Wilhelm Richmann was a Russian physicist of Baltic German origin who did pioneering work on electricity, atmospheric electricity, and calorimetry. He died by electrocution in St. Petersburg when struck by apparent ball lightning produced by an experiment attempting to ground the electrical discharge from a storm.
Early life and education
Richmann was born in the city of Pernau in Livonia, Swedish Empire. Richmann's father died of plague before he was born and his mother remarried. In his early years he studied in Reval ; later he studied in Germany at the universities of Halle and Jena.Career
After his education, Richmann spent the rest of his life as a professor of physics at the university in St. Petersburg and a center of scientific research. There he dealt with problems of thermodynamics and with investigations of electrical phenomena.He became famous for establishing the first general equation for calorimetric calculations. This law was later called Richmann's law in his honor.
Richmann also became famous for his investigations on thunderstorm electricity, which led to his tragic death in 1753. Richmann also worked as a tutor to the children of Count Andrei Osterman. Richmann translated Alexander Pope's Essay on Man into German from French, which appeared in 1741. In that year, he was also elected a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.