Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger (8 April 1779 – 6 September 1857) was a German chemist, physicist, and professor of mathematics born in Erlangen.

His PhD involved the Homeric Question revived at that time by Friedrich August Wolf.

Johann Tobias Mayer, Georg Friedrich Hildebrandt and Karl Christian von Langsdorf convinced him to switch to physics and chemistry and he lectured on this subjects in Erlangen until 1803 before taking a position as schoolteacher in Bayreuth and in 1811 in Nuremberg.

He created this instrument, acceptable for actual measurement as well as detection of small amounts of electric current, by wrapping a coil of wire around a graduated compass.

[2] He is the father of Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger and adopted one of his students Franz Wilhelm Schweigger-Seidel as his own son.