Otto Hahn (petrologist)

For the German chemist, see Otto Hahn.
Picture of Otto Hahn (1828 - 1904)
Cover Photo, Die Meteorite (Chondrite) und ihre Organismen, Table 22 Figure 3

Otto Hahn (1828 – 1904) was a German petrologist, geologist, lawyer and author. His father was Johann Franz Gottlieb Hahn (1789 – 1844). His great-grandfather was Christian Tobias Hahn (1759 – 1837), who was the half-brother of Philipp Matthäus Hahn.[1]

Hahn started his career as a lawyer. He eventually left the legal profession for the natural sciences. The University of Tübingen awarded him a doctorate for his participation in the Eozoön canadense controversy.[2] He was an active member of The New Church (Swedenborgian)[3] and was a Neptunist.[4] He published Die Urzelle in 1879.[5] His book Die Meteorite (Chondrite) und ihre Organismen,[6] published the following year in 1880, was a major work in the field of meteoritics that included 142 black and white photomicrographs of chondrite thin sections. In this latter work Hahn proposed the theory that the chondrites consist entirely of fossilized organic remains of life-forms, namely, fossilized sponges, corals, and crinoids.[7][8][9] In addition, he claimed that the iron meteorites have an organic origin and that they are the petrified remains of a fungus or plant that was permeated with iron-nickel alloys, e.g. similar to ichnotaxa like the Chondrites.[10]

  1. ^ "Otto Hahn (1828-1904) Stationen auf dem Lebensweg eines Hahn-Paulus-Nachkommen: Der swedenborgische Einfluß des Großvaters Karl Heinrich Ernst Paulus und Otto Hahns Bestrebungen im Bruderhaus Gustav Werners in Reutlingen p. 1-3" (PDF).
  2. ^ http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A690&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 Wyhe, John van. 2010
  3. ^ "Otto Hahn (1828-1904) p. 3-4" (PDF).
  4. ^ https://archive.org/details/the-meteorite-and-its-organisms The Meteorite and its Organisms, Hermann Karsten, 1881, p. 14
  5. ^ http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/162778613 WorldCat permalink
  6. ^ http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/245782563 WorldCat permalink
  7. ^ https://archive.org/details/ORGANIC-REMAINS-METEORIC-STONES-FRANCIS-BIRGHAM The Discovery of Organic Remains in Meteoric Stones, Francis Birgham, 1881
  8. ^ https://archive.org/details/jstor-2900511 Fossil Organisms in Meteorites, Geo. W. Rachel, 1881
  9. ^ https://archive.org/details/THECHONDRITEMETEORITESANDTHEIRORGANISMS archive.org English translation, Section 2, Chapter 3: "All Life"
  10. ^ https://archive.org/details/THECHONDRITEMETEORITESANDTHEIRORGANISMS archive.org English translation, Section 3: "The Iron Meteorites"