Johann Christoph Wichmannshausen (1663–1727) was a 17th-century German philologist. He received his Master’s degree (the highest degree available at that time) from the University of Leipzig in 1685. His dissertation, titled Disputationem Moralem De Divortiis Secundum Jus Naturae (Moral Disputation on Divorce according to the Law of Nature), was written under the direction of his father in law and advisor Otto Mencke. He was from 1692 until the time of his death a professor of Near Eastern languages and university librarian at the University of Wittenberg, and gave courses there in Philosophy and Hebrew.
Among the books he published are De extinctione ordinis Templariorum (The extinction of the Templars), 1687 and many short works on aspects of the Old Testament.
Today, Wichmannshausen is best known as part of a line of scientific genealogy stretching from Mencke to Gauss and to many other mathematicians. As of 2007, the Mathematics Genealogy Project lists 36826 of his academic descendants.
Christian August Hausen (1693–1743) was a German mathematician who is known for his research on electricity.
Hausen studied mathematics at the University of Wittenberg and received his master’s degree in 1712. He became an extraordinary professor of mathematics at the University of Leipzig at the age of 21 and later (1726) became an ordinary professor.
Hausen also researched electrical phenomena, using a triboelectric generator. In the introduction to his book on this subject, Novi profectus in historia electricitatis, published posthumously, Hausen states that he started these experiments shortly before his death. Hausen’s generator was similar to earlier generators, such as that of Francis Hauksbee. It consisted of a glass globe rotated by a cord and a large wheel. An assistant rubbed the globe with his hand to produce static electricity. Hausen’s book describes his generator and sets forth a theory of electricity in which electrification is a consequence of the production of vortices in a universal electrical fluid.
