Zöllner’s Universe

摘要

The idea that space is not Euclidean by necessity, and that there are other kinds of “curved” spaces, diffused slowly to the physical and astronomical sciences. Until Einstein’s general theory of relativity, only a handful of astronomers contemplated a connection between non-Euclidean geometry and real space. One of them, the German astrophysicist Johann Carl Friedrich Zöllner (1834–1882), suggested in 1872 a remarkable cosmological model describing a finite universe in closed space. I examine Zöllner’s little-known contribution to cosmology and also his even more unorthodox speculations of a four-dimensional space including both physical and spiritual phenomena. I provide an overview of Zöllner’s scientific work, of his status in the German scientific community, and of the controversies caused by his polemical style of science. Zöllner’s cosmology was effectively forgotten, but there is no reason why it should remain an unwritten chapter in the history of science.