The significance of naturphilosophie for Justus and Hermann Grassmann
pp. 49-59
in: Steve Russ, Jörg Liesen (eds), From Past to Future: Graßmann's Work in Context, Berlin, Springer, 2011Abstract
The tradition of dynamist Naturphilosophie undoubtedly influenced the work of Justus Günther Grassmann and his son Hermann. The founder of dynamist crystallographic theory, Christian Samuel Weiss, had a great impact on the formulation of the early vectorial symbolism [Scholz 1996]. Weiss was able to transform central hypotheses of dynamist Naturphilosophie into a scientific research program which then played an important part in J. G. Grassmann's mathematics. Weiss' dynamist theory of crystal lization formed the basis for J. G. Grassmann's "geometric theory of combination", which can be interpreted as a mathematical antecedent of H. Grassmann's 1844 Aus- dehnungslehre [Lewis 1981].
