Franz Aepinus

Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus (13 December 1724 – 10 August 1802) was a German mathematician, scientist, and natural philosopher residing in the Russian Empire.

He was descended from Johannes Aepinus (1499–1553), the first to adopt the Greek form (αἰπεινός) of the family name Hugk or Huck, and a leading theologian and controversialist at the time of the Protestant Reformation.

[2] He enjoyed the favor of Empress Catherine II of Russia, who appointed him tutor to her son Paul,[1]: 53 and endeavored, without success, to establish normal schools throughout the empire under his direction.

He also published a treatise, in 1761, De Distributione Caloris per Tellurem (On the Distribution of Heat in the Earth), and he was the author of memoirs on different subjects in astronomy, mechanics, optics and pure mathematics, contained in the journals of the learned societies of St. Petersburg and Berlin.

[2] Aepinus was the first to show that a theory of action at a distance for electricity provides simple explanation for experimental findings now known as electrostatic induction, laying the foundations for electrostatics[3]: 52  His theory resembled Newton's approach to gravity in that it relied on unexplained action at a distance;[1] also like Newton Aepinus believed that the transmission of force required contact.