10 Facts About Gustav Zeuner

Gustav Anton Zeuner was a German physicist, engineer and epistemologist, considered the founder of technical thermodynamics and of the Dresden School of Thermodynamics.

Gustav Zeuner developed close links with one of his professors, the famous mineralogist Albin Julius Weisbach, with whom he worked on several projects.

Gustav Zeuner was able to complete his course, and even completed his PhD at the University of Leipzig in 1853, but was banned from ever teaching at any Saxon university.

Gustav Zeuner continued in this position until 1857, even after moving to Zurich in 1855 to work as a professor for technical mechanics at the ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Also in Zurich Gustav Zeuner invented the three-dimensional population graph now sometimes known as a Gustav Zeuner diagram but more often as a Lexis diagram after Wilhelm Lexis who modified the idea slightly.

From 1859 Gustav Zeuner worked the stand-in director of the ETH Zurich, and in May 1865 he took over the position officially.

In 1871 Gustav Zeuner returned to Germany and was able to work with Weisbach when he succeeded his old friend as director of the Freiberg Mining Academy.

Gustav Zeuner taught there until 1875 as a professor of mechanics and the study of mining machinery.

In 1873, while still director of Freiberg Mining Academy, Gustav Zeuner took on the post of director at the Royal Saxon Polytechnicum in Dresden.

In 1889, aged 61, Gustav Zeuner gave up his position as director of the polytechnic to work as a lecturer until his retirement in 1897.