Johann Heinrich Lambert
Photometria is a work authored by Lambert, one of several texts through which he made contributions across multiple disciplines during his lifetime.
Lambert was born on 26 August 1728 in Mulhouse, where he held citizenship as a member of the Republic of Mulhouse. He also held French citizenship and worked in both German and French. He received education at the University of Göttingen and pursued occupations as a philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, a combination that led him to be described as a polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse. Alongside Photometria, he authored Cosmologische Briefe and Neues Organon oder Gedanken über die Erforschung und Bezeichnung des Wahren, demonstrating the range of subjects he addressed as a writer.
In mathematics and the physical sciences, Lambert's name became attached to a number of specific concepts and results. He was associated with the Lambert series, the Lambert W function, the Beer–Lambert law, Lambertian reflectance, and Lambert's cosine law. In addition, his name is connected to the Lambert conformal conic projection. These associations span the fields in which he worked as mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, and they represent the concrete terms by which his contributions have continued to be identified.
Lambert died in Berlin on 25 September 1777. His name persists across several distinct areas of mathematics and science through the named results and concepts listed above, among them the Lambert W function and the Beer–Lambert law, each of which continues to carry his name in current usage.
Quotes by Johann Heinrich Lambert
I am undecided whether or not the Milky Way is but one of countless others all of which form an entire system. Perhaps the light from these infinitely distant galaxies is so faint that we cannot see them.
Yeah, my dad bought me a guitar when I was like 10, and I didn't really want it then.
The first object of my endeavours was the means to become perfect and happy.
I bought some books in order to learn the first principles of philosophy.
I understood that the will could not be improved before the mind had been enlightened.
This hypothesis (Parallel hypothesis) would not destroy itself at all easily.
I should almost therefore put forward the proposal that the third hypothsis (angle sum of a triangle less than two right angles) holds on the surface of an imaginary sphere.
![Proofs of the Euclidean [parallel] postulate can be developed to such an extent that apparently a mere trifle remains. But a careful analysis shows that in this seeming trifle lies the crux of the matter; usually it contains either the proposition that is being proved or a postulate equivalent to it.](https://lakl0ama8n6qbptj.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/quotes/quote-1914811.png)
Proofs of the Euclidean [parallel] postulate can be developed to such an extent that apparently a mere trifle remains. But a careful analysis shows that in this seeming trifle lies the crux of the matter; usually it contains either the proposition that is being proved or a postulate equivalent to it.
The mathematical sciences, in particular algebra and mechanics, provided me with clear and profound examples to confirm the rules I had learned.