Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus was a Saxon mathematician, physicist and philosopher who corresponded with Leibniz and Spinoza. He built large burning mirrors and lenses to study the melting of materials at high temperatures, and in Dresden he worked with Johann Friedrich Böttger on the experiments that produced the first European hard-paste porcelain, shortly before his death in 1708. The Meissen manufactory followed in 1710.