Otto Mencke (English: /ˈmɛŋkə/; German: [ˈmɛŋkə]; 22 March 1644 – 18 January 1707) was a 17th-century German philosopher and scientist.

Otto Mencke
Otto Mencke
Born	(1644-03-22)22 March 1644 Oldenburg, County of Oldenburg
Died	18 January 1707(1707-01-18) (aged 62) Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony
Nationality	German
Education	University of Leipzig (B.A., 1662; M.A. 1664; Ph.D., Aug. 1666)
Known for	Founding the Acta Eruditorum journal
Scientific career
Fields	Philosopher and mathematician
Institutions	University of Leipzig
Thesis	Ex Theologia naturali – De Absoluta Dei Simplicitate, Micropolitiam, id est Rempublicam In Microcosmo Conspicuam (Aug. 1666)
Doctoral advisor	Jakob Thomasius
Doctoral students	J. C. Wichmannshausen Christian Michelmann
Notes
He is the father of Johann Burchard Mencke.

Work

Mencke obtained his doctorate at the University of Leipzig in August 1666 with a thesis entitled: Ex Theologia naturali – De Absoluta Dei Simplicitate, Micropolitiam, id est Rempublicam In Microcosmo Conspicuam.

He is notable as being the founder of the very first scientific journal in Germany, established 1682, entitled Acta Eruditorum. He was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Leipzig, but is more famous for his scientific genealogy that produced a fine lineage of mathematicians that includes notables such as Carl Friedrich Gauss and David Hilbert.

The Mathematics Genealogy Project database records more than 102,000 (as of January 2018^[update]) mathematicians and other scientists in his lineage. The Philosophy Family Tree records 535 philosophers in his lineage as of May 2010^[update].[1]

Isaac Newton and Mencke were in correspondence in 1693.

References

External links

• Otto Mencke at the Mathematics Genealogy Project