Gauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network
From the mid-1830s, with a public high point around 1836–1841, Gauss and Weber’s Magnetischer Verein coordinated timed magnetic observations and published Resultate aus den Beobachtungen des magnetischen Vereins, a networked club of stations. In the causal graph this event strengthens Social Cohesion, a driver that strengthens Having a say in government — an improving welfare path.
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From the mid-1830s, with a public high point around 1836–1841, Gauss and Weber’s Magnetischer Verein coordinated timed magnetic observations and published Resultate aus den Beobachtungen des magnetischen Vereins, a networked club of stations. Humboldt had already evangelised global needles; Göttingen supplied reduction rules and a journal-like organ. Distant observers shared labour. The row stores one cohesion instrument of scientific practice.
Context
A verein that makes strangers observe at the same Göttingen mean time is cohesion: a shared ritual of numbers. It is also data. The welfare sign here is the club, not a later meteorological agency. Weber’s 1837 political disaster strained the shop; the Resultate still went on for a time. Colonial and European stations were unequal in kit; that inequality is a limit, not a reason to drop the dated club. A later space-weather bureau is not this Resultate organ, and the 1833 wire is not this verein.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.
Why it matters
Improving cohesion path: strangers kept the same magnetic minutes. High confidence on the mid-1830s organ. Modest weight. Later space-weather bureaux are other authors. Elite Prussian science hospitality in 1828 remains a different seating.
Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Magnetischer Verein is not a later NASA or ESA programme. Mixed effects of Gauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network are separate paths.
Who was responsible
Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
PersonDirect responsibility
responsibility level 0.36 · verified
He and Weber coordinated stations and issued Resultate. Distant observers sent numbers. Complex organisers, not every colonial volunteer.
What changed
Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.
- FactGauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network
- strengthensDriverSocial Cohesion
- strengthensIndicators (2)Having a say in government
impact weight 0.4 · Effect from 1 January 1836 · verified
Strengthens · Relationship strength 0.18 (weight 0.4 × strength 0.45)
Observed
29.8% of population aged 16-65 years · 8.13 below the normal line (2023)
Worse than normalTwo readings: 30.2% of population aged 16-65 years (2021) and 29.8% of population aged 16-65 years (2023).
20212023 Above normal = better
Weakens · Relationship strength 0.18 (weight 0.4 × strength 0.45)
Observed
43.9 Score · 43.9 above the normal line (2024)
Worse than normal26 readings, 1996–2024: rose from 43 Score to 43.9 Score.
Normal is zero · any amount = worse
Evidence
The sources behind this fact and its verification state.
- 1.Alexander von Humboldt Foundation — Humboldt as scientific organiserAlexander von Humboldt-Stiftung · High credibility · verified
- 2.Göttingen Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesAkademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish
The Göttingen academy’s public history covers the magnetic project as a Göttingen product. The Humboldt Foundation’s public Humboldt pages independently frame Alexander von Humboldt’s role in organising international geomagnetic attention, the wider net into which the Verein plugged. Official: https://www.adw-goe.de/ (opens in a new tab). Independent: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/ (opens in a new tab). HGSS 2020 corroborates as a finding aid. The records establish a 1830s Göttingen-centred magnetic association with published results. They do not establish a unique later climate-agency coefficient. A showing that no Resultate issued from Gauss–Weber would change the row.
Established: Gauss and Weber ran a published magnetic association in the mid-1830s. Not established: that they founded a modern space agency, or that Humboldt’s 1828 party is this journal-like organ. A contradictory start without Göttingen would change the row.
Shared responsibility is part of Gauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network. Naming Carl Friedrich Gauss does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1836-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.
That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.
If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.
Causal path
How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.
- ActorCarl Friedrich Gauss
- contributed toFactGauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network
- strengthensDriverSocial Cohesion
- strengthensIndicatorHaving a say in government
Cite this page
Factrail. (2026). Gauss and Weber organise the Magnetischer Verein’s published network. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/gs-magnetischer-verein-1836
https://factrail.ai/facts/gs-magnetischer-verein-1836
Accessed 16 October 2026.
By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed
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