xi
Neumann's publications are not sufficient to give an adequate idea of his life's work. As a teacher he exerted a wide-spread influence, and the progress of physical science in Germany is largely indebted to the stimulating influence which he exercised, especially with the help of the Mathematisch-Physikalisches Seminar,' founded by him in conjunction with Jacobi and Sobnke. The object of this institu tion was to supplement the teaching given in lectures, and to intro duce students into the methods of original research. Exercises were set to the students by the directors of the seminar, and, as Neumann himself explained, "In the choice of problems I laid stress on their referring to points of practical importance, such as the application of Gauss' theory of principal points and planes in a system of lenses; or that the selected exercise should lead students to an experimental investigation of a problem which they had treated in a theoretical manner.
There was never, probably, a school of original research conducted in so systematic a manner as this seminar, in which Neumann was the leading spirit. Annual reports of the work done by each student were sent in to the Prussian Minister of Education, and, occasionally, money prizes were given for a research of special merit. An interest- ing account of the history of this seminar is contained in a notice of Neumann's life by P. Volkmann.* Its importance may be recognised by the fact that Kirchhoff's first papers on the distribution of electric conductors, and H. Wild's construction of his photometer and polari meter, figure amongst the direct results of the teaching given in the seminar. Kirchhoff's great powers were soon recognised by Neumann, and when, in the year 1846, Neumann had set as a special prize problem "The determination of the constants on which the intensity of in duced currents depends," the prize was awarded to him for a research which contained the first measurement of a resistanco in electro-mag- netic measure Neumann's snccess as a teacher will be appreciated by reference, iu Volkmann's publication, to the doctor dissertations of his pupils, which were carried out under his guidance. Amongst the students who flocked to hear his lectures at Königsberg, we find Borohardt, Durège, Lipschitz, Kirchboff, Wild, C. Neumann, Clebsch, Auwers, Quinoke, and Voigt.
Nenmann was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1862, a Corresponding Member of the French Academy in 1863, and received the Copley Medal in the year 18 A. S
Leipzig (G. Teubner), 1896. I owe to this publication and to Mr. Voigt's notice in 'Göttingen, Nachrichten,' 1895, p. 248, nearly all the information given in the above obituary notice.
