GUERICKE, OTTO VON (1602-1686), German natural philosopher, was born at Magdeburg, in Prussian Saxony, on Nov. 20, 1602. Having studied law and mathematics in Ger many and at Leyden, he visited France and England, and in 1636 became engineer-in-chief at Erfurt. In 1627 he was elected alder man of Magdeburg, and in 1646 mayor of that city and a magis trate of Brandenburg. His leisure was devoted to scientific pur suits, especially in pneumatics. Incited by the discoveries of Galileo, Pascal and Torricelli, he attempted the creation of a vacuum. After a number of partially successful experiments he invented the air-pump (1650) . Besides investigating other phe nomena connected with a vacuum, he constructed an electrical machine which depended on the electrification of a rotating ball of sulphur ; and he made successful researches in astronomy, pre dicting the periodicity of the return of comets. In 1681 he gave up office, and retired to Hamburg, where he resided until his death on May 11, 1686.
His principal observations are given in his work, Experimenta nova, ut vocant, Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio (Amsterdam, 1672). He is also the author of a Geschichte der Belagerung and Eroberung von Magdeburg. See F. W. Hoffmann, Otto von Guericke (1874).