Ernst Abbe (1840–1905)

Ernst Karl Abbe was a German physicist who, in partnership with Carl Zeiss, revolutionised the manufacture of optical glass and microscopes. He and became head of the Carl Zeiss company, one of the world’s largest producers of optical instruments, and helped to found the Schott glass company. He established the Carl Zeiss Foundation to support social and scientific causes.

Abbe was born in 1840 at Eisenach in Thuringia, where his father was a foreman in a textile mill. His father’s employer helped Abbe to attend schools at Jena. He subsequently took a degree and doctorate at the University of Göttingen. He published papers on thermodynamics and optics, including the ‘Abbe sine condition’, which was a mathematical rule that informed the improved performance of optical systems. At the age of 26 he was invited by Carl Zeiss to assist him in developing high-quality optics for microscopes at the firm he had started 20 years earlier at Jena. The firm began to produce instruments of unprecedented clarity and resolution. From 1876 Abbe was a partner. To make the glass for the optics in Jena, in 1884 he developed the glassworks Glastechnisches Laboratorium Schott & Genossen with Zeiss and Otto Schott, a glass manufacturer from the Ruhr. In 1899 he became sole owner of the Carl Zeiss company.

Abbe was an exceptional employer of the period. He instituted a shorter, eight-hour day and introduced a profit-sharing scheme. Shortly after the death of Carl Zeiss in 1888, he established the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung. In time all the shares in the Carl Zeiss company were assigned to the foundation. It had responsibilities to operate the business, meet the needs of the employees, support non-profit organisations in Jena and promote science. Privately, Abbe also donated large sums to support the University of Jena and other causes. He resigned from the management of the company in 1903 and died two years later, leaving his wife Else and two daughters.