Peter Crüger

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Crüger's Azimuthal Quadrant, completed by Johannes Hevelius

Peter Crüger or Peter Krüger (Polish: Piotr Krüger, 1580—1639) was a German mathematician, astronomer and polymath who spend most of his life in Danzig (Gdańsk) in Poland.

In scientific documents published in Latin, his common name Krüger (German for potter or innkeeper, also spelled Krueger when the Umlaut (diacritic) Ü is not available) was latinized and spelled Crüger, like e.g. in the case of Nicolaus Copernicus. This distinguishes him from the many other people named Krüger, compared to the few named Crüger.

Krüger had studied in Königsberg, Leipzig and from Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler before he graduaded in 1606 in Wittenberg.

Krüger then moved to Poland to the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) where he worked for the rest of his life as a professor of poetry and mathematics at the Danziger Akademikum (Danzig Academy). As a philosopher and poet, he was associated with the poet Johannes Plavius who in his Institutio Poetica mentions Krüger in its opening letter. Crüger dedicated an extremely laudatory poem to Plavius, which appears in the preface to the Plavius' Praecepta logicalia.

At the time of the Thirty Years War a number of Silesians took refuge from the ravages of war in their towns, among them Andreas Gryphius, who also came for a time to Danzig and was very much influenced by the famous mathematician and astronomer Peter Krüger. Professors Krüger and Mochingert made Gryphius aware of the new German-language poetry. Gryphius wrote memorial verses, when in 1638 Krüger's child died. Years ago Krüger had already developed a great friendship with Martin Opitz, "father of German poetry", who also lived in Danzig.

Krüger published treatises on many scientific subjects and contributed to the progress of trigonometry, geography and astronomy, also with the development of astronomical instruments. In the years 1627 to 1630, Krüger was the teacher of a teenager of the Hewelke family who would become known later as Johannes Hevelius, the astronomer. After Hevelius' had returned to Danzig in 1634, the dying Krüger appealed [1][2] to him to pursue astronomy. Hevelius gratefully mentions Krüger in his Machina coelestis.

The Crüger crater on the Moon is named after him.