Ernst Abbe

Ernst Abbe (1840–1905) was a physicist, astronomer, university teacher, and statistician whose primary field of work was optics. Born in Eisenach and a citizen of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, he died in Jena. He was educated at the University of Göttingen and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, where Wilhelm Eduard Weber served as his doctoral advisor. Abbe worked as an employee of both Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Carl Zeiss AG.

He held memberships in the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Abbe was a member of the Free-minded People's Party and received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His notable works include *Neue Apparate zur Bestimmung des Brechungs- und Zerstreuungs-vermögens fester und flüssiger körper* and *Der Briefwechsel zwischen Otto Schott und Ernst Abbe über das optische Glas 1879-1881*. He is buried in Nordfriedhof.