GEISSLER, HEINRICH

born May 26, 1815, Igelshieb, Thuringia, Saxe-Meiningen died Jan. 24, 1879, Bonn, Prussia in full Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Geissler German glassblower for whom the Geissler (mercury) pump and the Geissler tube are named. Geissler opened a shop in Bonn in 1854 to make scientific apparatus and devised his mercury air pump in 1855. Later, using an apparatus of his own invention, he was able to demonstrate, in collaboration with Julius Plckers, that water reaches its maximum density at 3.8 C (later determined to be 3.98). Among his other inventions were the vaporimeter and the Geissler tube, in which an electric current produces light when passed through a rarefied gas.