Lambert, Johann Heinrich

Lambert, Johann Heinrich a noted German philosopher and mathematician, was born August 29, 1728, at Mühlhausen, Alsace, of a French Protestant family. His talents and application to study having gained him friends, he obtained a good education, making remarkable progress in mathematics, philosophy, and Oriental languages. In 1756-58 he visited Holland, France, and Italy, and while residing in the first-named country appeared in print with his Sur les proprietes remarquables de la route de la lumiere, etc. In 1764 Frederick the Great summoned him to Berlin, and made him a member both of the Council of Architecture and of the Academy of Sciences. He died in that city September 25, 1777, leaving behind him the renown of having been the greatest analyst in mathematics, logic, and metaphysics that the 18th century had produced. Lambert was the first to lay a scientific basis for the measurement of the intensity of light in his Pyrometrie (Augsburg, 1760). and he discovered the theory of the speaking-tube. In philosophy, and particularly in analytical logic, he sought to establish an accurate system by bringing mathematics to bear upon these subjects, ins his Neues Organon,

oder Gedanken uber die Erforschung und Beziehung des Wahren (Lpzg. 1764, 2 volumes). Of his other works, we may mention his profound Kosmologische Briefe uber die Einrichtung des Weltbaus (Augsb. 1761), and his correspondence with Kant. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 29:151 sq.; Chambers, Cyclop. s.v.; Graf, Lambert's Leben (1829); Huber, Lambert nach s. Leben u. Wirken (1829).