Weber was born in Schlossstrasse inWittenberg, where his father, Michael Weber, was Professor ofTheology at the local university. The building in which they lived had previously been the home ofAbraham Vater.[4]
Wilhelm was the second of three brothers, all of whom were distinguished by an aptitude for science. After thedissolution of the University of Wittenberg in 1817, his father was transferred to the university inHalle. Wilhelm had received his first lessons from his father, but was now sent to the Orphan Asylum and Grammar School in Halle. After that he entered the university and devoted himself tonatural philosophy. He distinguished himself so much in his classes, and by original work, that after taking his degree of Doctor and becoming aPrivatdozent, he was appointed as Professor Extraordinarius of Natural Philosophy at Halle.
In 1831, on the recommendation ofCarl Friedrich Gauss, he was hired by theUniversity of Göttingen as professor of physics, at the age of twenty-seven. His lectures were interesting, instructive, and suggestive. Weber thought that, in order to thoroughly understand physics and apply it to daily life, mere lectures, though illustrated by experiments, were insufficient, and he encouraged his students to experiment themselves, free of charge, in the college laboratory. As a student of twenty years he, with his brother,Ernst Heinrich Weber, Professor of Anatomy atLeipzig, had written a book on theWave Theory and Fluidity, which brought its authors a considerable reputation. Acoustics was a favourite science of his, and he published numerous papers upon it inPoggendorffs Annalen, Schweigger'sJahrbücher für Chemie und Physik, and the musical journalCarcilia. The 'mechanism of walking in mankind' was another study, undertaken in conjunction with his younger brother,Eduard Weber. These important investigations were published between the years 1825 and 1838. Gauss and Weber constructed the first electromagnetictelegraph in 1833, which connected the observatory with the institute for physics inGöttingen.
In December 1837, the Hanoverian government dismissed Weber, one of theGöttingen Seven, from his post at the university for political reasons. Weber then travelled for a time, visiting England, among other countries, and became professor of physics inLeipzig from 1843 to 1849, when he was reinstated at Göttingen. One of his most important works, co-authored withCarl Friedrich Gauss andCarl Wolfgang Benjamin Goldschmidt, wasAtlas des Erdmagnetismus: nach den Elementen der Theorie entworfen (Atlas ofGeomagnetism: Designed according to the elements of the theory),[5][6] a series of magnetic maps, and it was chiefly through his efforts that magnetic observatories were instituted. He studied magnetism with Gauss, and during 1864 published hisElectrodynamic Proportional Measures containing a system of absolute measurements for electric currents, which forms the basis of those in use. Weber died inGöttingen, where he is buried inthe same cemetery asMax Planck andMax Born.
Elektrodynamische Maaßbestimmungen : insbesondere Zurückführung der Stromintensitäts-Messungen auf mechanisches Maass (with Wilhelm Weber) 1857. "Electrodynamic Measurements, Especially Attributing Mechanical Units to Measures of Current Intensity".German text.English translation
^Assis, Andre Koch Torres. "On the First Electromagnetic Measurement of the Velocity of Light by Wilhelm Weber and Rudolf Kohlrausch". In Bevilacqua, F; Giannetto, EA (eds.).Volta and the History of Electricity(PDF). Università degli Studi di Pavia and Editore Ulrico Hoepli. p. 280. Retrieved11 March 2023.Weber and Kohlrausch found √2 c = 4.39 x 10^8 m/s, such that c = 3.1 x 10^8 m/s
Urbanitsky, Alfred; Wormell, Richard (1886)."Electricity in the Service of Man". London: Cassell and Company:756–758.wilhelm weber physics.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help) – Telegraph of Weber and Gauss (with pictures)
"Weber, Wilhelm Eduard".Virtual Laboratory. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Retrieved5 September 2007.
Jackson, Myles W. (2006).Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany. MIT Press.ISBN0-262-27615-1.
