In the 19th century the "Albertina" achieved international fame as a place of mathematics and physics. Modern teaching methods laid the foundation for the outstanding quality of mathematics and physics in Königsberg. The astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel and the pedagogue Johann Friedrich Herbart are regarded as pioneers of the mathematical-physical school there.
In 1826, at the suggestion of the universal scholar Karl Gottfried Hagen, several young scientists were appointed, including Carl Gustav Jacob Jacoby and Franz Ernst Neumann. They founded the "Königsberg School", where education and research were innovatively combined. 54 of their students became professors themselves.
David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski, two of the most important mathematicians in Germany, grew up in Königsberg at the same time, studied there and after 1900 contributed significantly to the discovery of the theory of relativity.
Illustrations:
1.) Bird-catching facility in Rossitten (today Rybachy), around 1938
Johannes Thienemann (1863-1938) founded the world's first ornithological research station, the Rybachy ornithological station, on the Curonian Spit and carried out systematic banding there for the first time, providing groundbreaking insights into bird migration.
The bird catching device, modelled on the "Helgoland Funnel Weir", consists of a large opening, hardly visible to the birds, a long sluice made of nets and a retrieval cage at the other end. The birds fly in, notice that they cannot go any further up or along the sides and end up in the cage. There they are retrieved, measured, weighed and banded.
Photographer: Ernst Schüz
2.) Daguerreotype of the total solar eclipse, photo by Johann Berkowski, Königsberg 1851
Eighty-four seconds exposure time, a telescope with only six centimetres lens diameter and less than one metre focal length resulted in the first usable photo of a sky event. It originated in the Königsberg Observatory and showed for the first time the structures of the corona, the solar atmosphere. In addition, the protuberances were visible, glowing clouds of matter rising explosively from the surface of the sun.