Gustav Karsten

He studied mathematics and sciences at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1843 with the thesis Imponderabilium praesertim electricitatis theoria dynamica.

At Berlin his teachers were Jakob Steiner, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.

In 1845 he obtained his habilitation, and from 1847 to 1894 he was a professor of physics and mineralogy at the University of Kiel.

He was the doctoral advisor of the influential German-American anthropologist Franz Boas.

In 1859 he was named director of the administration for the Elbherzogtümer, and from 1870 was a member of the Kommission zur Untersuchung deutscher Meere (Commission for the Scientific Research of the German Seas).