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Otto von Guericke (1602-1686)

Otto Guericke was born on 20 November 1602 in Magdeburg as son of Hans Guericke and Anne Zweydorff.
In 1617 he first began studies in the subjects of jurisprudence and fortification at the Universities of Leipzig, Helmstedt, Jena and Leiden. Then Otto Guericke also first came into contact with the New Sciences at the University of Leiden, which he should already successfully use some years later within his profession as an engineer for the city Magdeburg.
In 1624, briefly after the unexpected death of his father, Guericke successfully finished his higher education.

In 1626 he married Margarethe Alemann, who lived in Magdeburg and in the following years gave birth to three children: Anna Katharina Guericke, Otto Guericke Junior and Jakob Christoph Guericke. In the same year Otto Guericke was elected into the city council of Magdeburg.

A heavy year was then to follow with the city Magdeburg being besieged for the now already third time in 1630 and being conquered, raided and destroyed in the year 1631 by Tilly’s troops. In the process of these events Otto Guericke was taken into captivity. Shortly afterwards Otto was appointed an engineer to the Royal-Swedish services in Erfurt and among other buildings designed the Erfurter Cyriaksburg. In 1632 he made three plans of the destroyed Magdeburg and was then appointed a fortress developing engineer of the city of Magdeburg. From 1632 to 1646 Guericke was then appointed a fortress developing engineer in Saxonian services. In the years of 1641 to 1646 he was also elected a state finance officer and was responsible for Magdeburg’s diplomatic missions from 1642 to 1663. In 1645 Guericke’s wife Margarethe died. Still in the same year Guericke began with his scientific researches, whereby he, as the first German scientist ever, put great value on experimental proceedings. His researches were called “Magdeburger experiments”. The “Magdeburger hemisphere experiment” was later to become his most famous experiment.

Otto Guericke was selected one of the four mayors of Magdeburg in 1646 and re-married with Dorothea Lentke, who was the daughter of its colleague Stephan Lentke and also from Magdeburg. The marriage remained childless.

After the invention of the vacuum pneumatic pump and the first public vacuum experiments in the Reichstag to Regensburg at 1657, the “Magdeburger hemisphere experiment” was first presented by Otto Guericke. During this experiment on the demonstration of air pressure Otto Guericke used two copper hemispheres with a diameter of 42 cm, which would be put together in a hermetically way. With a reverse fire hose he then pumped out almost all of the air of the interior between these hemispheres. Even 8 horses on each side of the hemispheres were not able to separate these afterwards. When air was then allowed back into the interior, the hemispheres fell apart automatically.

In the year 1657 Guericke’s first scientific publication was, published in the “Mechanica hydraulico pneumatica” in Würzburg. In the following years additional experiments followed: e.g. concerning weather forecast, sulphur as well as electric city.

In 1666 Otto Guericke and its family were ennobled by the Emperor Leopold I.
In the year 1686 Otto von Guericke died in Hamburg. His body was transferred to Magdeburg by ship, where he was buried on 2 July 1686 in the families’ tomb in the Church of St. John accompanied by the chiming of the church-bells of the city Magdeburg.

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