The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert

KIRCHHOFF, Gustav Robert, German physicist: b. Königsberg, 1824; d. 1887. Graduated from the university of his native city, he was elected professor of physics at Breslau (1850), and four years later he went in the same capacity to Heidelberg, and from there to Berlin (1875-87). He made many original investigations in the realm of physics and was joint discoverer with Bunsen of the spectroscope. His collected works, consisting principally of essays on his special subject of teaching, physics, were published in 1882, and a second edition was issued four years after his death.