Tobias Mayer

Code: 37

Only a few metres away from Schiller’s birthplace, another important and interesting son of Marbach was born. The mathematician and astronomer Tobias Mayer was born in this small and old, but also beautiful house on February 17, 1723. He lived in Marbach just for a few months, then he and his parents moved to another town about 30 miles away, called Esslingen.
He was a very talented child and when he was just 5 years old he was able to read, write and calculate. Unfortunately, his parents died very early and after their death the mayor of Esslingen adopted him into the family and he began to read books about mathematics. In his early twenties he published his first book about the new types of geometry, and became famous. The professor to be also worked for a good map publisher. At the time, he began to make observations of stars and the moon and he tried to calculate the exact longitude at sea. In the 1750s he wrote a book about the moon and the solar eclipse.
A few years later he moved with his wife and his children to northern Germany to work at the then most modern observatory in Europe. He became very popular for his findings, but only after his death at the age of 39.

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