The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Jungius, Joachim
(y´äkhm yng´s) (KEY) , 15871657, German mathematician, logician, and systematizer of natural history. In 1608 he made his inaugural dissertation at the Univ. of Giessen, proclaiming in it the doctrine, endorsed by progressive 17th-century scientists, that science must be based on mathematics. A practicing physician as well as a professor of mathematics, he subsequently elaborated an empirical philosophy of science, a morphological system of botany, and a corpuscular chemistry that assumed the conservation of mass. Difficulties with religious authorities forced Jungius to refrain from publishing many of his later works.