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{{Short description|German mathematician (1724–1802)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Franz Aepinus
| image             = 
| image_size        = 
| nocat_wdimage     = yes
| caption           = Engraving by {{ill|Christian Fritzsch|de}}
| birth_date        = 13 December 1724
| birth_place       = [[Rostock]], [[Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin]], [[Holy Roman Empire]]
| death_date        = {{d-da|10 August 1802|13 December 1724}}
| death_place       = [[Tartu|Dorpat]], [[Livonia Governorate|Livonia]], [[Russian Empire]]
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
| nationality       = [[Germany|German]], [[Russia]]n
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[electricity]] and [[magnetism]], [[astronomy]]
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}}
'''Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus''' (13 December 1724{{snd}}10 August 1802) was a German mathematician, scientist, and [[natural philosopher]] residing in the [[Russian Empire]]. Aepinus is best known for his researches, theoretical and experimental, in electricity and magnetism.

==Early life==

He was born at [[Rostock]] in the [[Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin]]. He was descended from [[Johannes Aepinus]] (1499–1553), the first to adopt the Greek form (αἰπεινός) of the family name Hugk or Huck, and a leading theologian and controversialist at the time of the [[Protestant Reformation]].<ref name=Home/>

== Career ==
After studying [[medicine]] for a time, Franz Aepinus devoted himself to the physical and mathematical sciences, in which he soon gained such distinction that he was admitted a member of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences]]. In 1755, he was briefly the director of the [[Astronomisches Rechen-Institut]]. In 1757, he settled in [[St Petersburg]] as member of the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]] and professor of physics, and remained there till his retirement in 1798.

The rest of his life was spent at [[Tartu|Dorpat]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Aepinus, Franz Ulrich Theodor |volume=1|page=258}}</ref> He enjoyed the favor of Empress [[Catherine II of Russia]], who appointed him tutor to her son [[Paul I of Russia|Paul]],<ref name=Home/>{{rp|53}}
and endeavored, without success, to establish normal schools throughout the empire under his direction.<ref name="EB1911" />  In 1760, Aepinus was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]].<ref name=Home/>{{rp|49}}

==Works==
[[File:Aepinus.png|thumb|Title page of his 1759 book]]
His principal work, ''Tentamen Theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi'' ("An Attempt at a Theory of Electricity and Magnetism"), published at St. Petersburg in 1759, was the first systematic attempt to apply mathematical reasoning to these subjects.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Roy |first1=Indrajit G. |title=A History of Magnetism in Human Civilisation: Magnetism on the Long Arc of Time |date=29 January 2024 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-5275-6612-5 |page=174 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Magnetism_in_Human_Civilisa/ltPzEAAAQBAJ?hl=en |language=en}}</ref> He also published a treatise, in 1761, ''De Distributione Caloris per Tellurem'' (On the Distribution of Heat in the Earth), and he was the author of memoirs on different subjects in [[astronomy]], [[mechanics]], [[optics]] and pure [[mathematics]], contained in the journals of the learned societies of [[Saint Petersburg|St. Petersburg]] and [[Berlin]].

His discussion of the effects of [[parallax]] in the transit of a planet over the sun's disc excited great interest, having appeared (in 1764) between the dates of the two transits of [[Venus]] that took place in the 18th century.<ref name="EB1911" />

==Electrical theories==
[[File:Могила Эпинуса.jpg|thumb|Aepinus gravestone in [[Raadi cemetery]], [[Tartu]], [[Estonia]] ]]
Aepinus was the first to show that a theory of [[action at a distance]] for electricity provides simple explanation for experimental findings now known as [[electrostatic induction]], laying the foundations for [[electrostatics]]<ref name="Whittaker">{{Cite book |last=Whittaker |first=Edmund T. |title=A history of the theories of aether & electricity. 1: The classical theories |date=1989 |publisher=Dover Publ |isbn=978-0-486-26126-3 |edition=Repr |location=New York}}</ref>{{rp|52}} His theory resembled Newton's approach to gravity in that it relied on unexplained [[action at a distance]];<ref name=Home>Home, Roderick Weir. "Aepinus's Essay on the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism". United States, Princeton University Press, 2015.</ref> also like Newton Aepinus believed that the transmission of force required contact.<ref name=Sanford>{{Cite journal |last=Sanford |first=Fernando |date=1921 |title=Some Early Theories Regarding Electrical Forces--The Electric Emanation Theory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/6312 |journal=The Scientific Monthly |volume=12 |issue=6 |pages=544–550 |bibcode=1921SciMo..12..544S |issn=0096-3771}}</ref> These seeming contradictions reflect the modern scientific concept of approximate models of physical phenomena.
 
[[Henry Cavendish]] devised theories of electricity which were essentially the same, yet had been framed without any communication between these two philosophers. Aepinus  published his theory about ten years before that of Cavendish.  These are theories which eventually put to rest the idea of two fluids.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite Efron|Эпинус, Франц-Ульрих-Теодор}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite encyclopedia
  | last = Heilbron
  | first = John L.
  | title = Aepinus, Franz Ulrich Theodosius
  | encyclopedia = [[Dictionary of Scientific Biography]]
  | volume = 1
  | pages = 66–68 
  | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons
  | location = New York
  | year = 1970
  | isbn = 0-684-10114-9
 }}
* [https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vHx9BgAAQBAJ&pg|Aepinus's Essay on the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism] by Roderick Weir Home.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Franz Aepinus}}
* Electricity entry in [https://books.google.com.au/books?id=pJZGAQAAMAAJ&pg|The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia] of 1832
*{{ScienceWorldBiography | urlname=Aepinus | title=Aepinus, Franz (1724–1802)}}
* {{MacTutor Biography|id=Aepinus}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aepinus, Franz}}
[[Category:1724 births]]
[[Category:1802 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials at Raadi cemetery]]
[[Category:People from Rostock]]
[[Category:People from the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin]]
[[Category:Natural philosophers]]
[[Category:18th-century German naturalists]]
[[Category:18th-century German mathematicians]]
[[Category:Scientists from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]]
[[Category:Immigrants to the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Russian people of German descent]]
[[Category:Scientists from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Inventors from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:18th-century German inventors]]
[[Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:University of Jena alumni]]
[[Category:University of Rostock alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University]]
[[Category:Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire]]