Gustav Kirchhoff was born in Knigsberg, East Prussia, the son of Friedrich Kirchhoff, a lawyer, and

Johanna Henriette Wittke. He graduated from the Albertus University of Knigsberg in 1847 where
he attended the mathematico-physical seminar directed by Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi,[2]Franz Ernst
Neumann and Friedrich Julius Richelot. He married Clara Richelot, the daughter of his mathematics
professor Richelot. In the same year, they moved to Berlin, where he stayed until he received a
professorship at Breslau.

Gustav Kirchhoff (left) andRobert Bunsen (right)

Kirchhoff formulated his circuit laws, which are now ubiquitous in electrical engineering, in 1845,
while still a student. He completed this study as a seminar exercise; it later became his doctoral
dissertation. In 1857 he calculated that an electric signal in a resistanceless wire travels along the
wire at the speed of light.[3] He proposed his law of thermal radiation in 1859, and gave a proof in
1861. He was called to the University of Heidelberg in 1854, where he collaborated in spectroscopic
work with Robert Bunsen. Together Kirchhoff and Bunsen discovered caesium and rubidium in 1861.
At Heidelberg he ran a mathematico-physical seminar, modelled on Neumann's, with the
mathematician Leo Koenigsberger. Among those who attended this seminar were Arthur
Schuster and Sofia Kovalevskaya. In 1875 Kirchhoff accepted the first chair specifically dedicated
totheoretical physics at Berlin.
In 1862 he was awarded the Rumford Medal for his researches on the fixed lines of the solar
spectrum, and on the inversion of the bright lines in the spectra of artificial light.
He contributed greatly to the field of spectroscopy by formalizing three laws that describe
the spectral composition of light emitted by incandescent objects, building substantially on the
discoveries of David Alter and Anders Jonas ngstrm (see also: spectrum analysis).
He also contributed to optics, carefully solving Maxwell's equations to provide a solid foundation
for Huygens' principle (and correct it in the process).[4]