Jungius, Joachim

Related Category: Mathematics: Biographies

(yō´äkhĭm yng´ēs), 1587–1657, German mathematician, logician, and systematizer of natural history. In 1608 he made his inaugural dissertation at the Univ. of Giessen, proclaiming in it the doctrine, endorsed by progressive 17th-century scientists, that science must be based on mathematics. A practicing physician as well as a professor of mathematics, he subsequently elaborated an empirical philosophy of science, a morphological system of botany, and a corpuscular chemistry that assumed the conservation of mass. Difficulties with religious authorities forced Jungius to refrain from publishing many of his later works.