Georg Wilhelm Richmann

Georg Wilhelm Richmann (Russian: Георг Вильгельм Рихман) (July 22, 1711 – August 6, 1753 (old style: July 11, 1711 – July 26, 1753)) was a German physicist who lived in Russia. He proved that thunder clouds contain electric charge.

He was born into a Baltic German family in Pernau (today Pärnu, Estonia) in Swedish Livonia, which in 1721 became part of the Russian Empire as a result of the Great Northern War (1700–1721). His father died of plague before he was born, and his mother remarried. In his early years he studied in Reval (today's Tallinn, Estonia); later he studied in Germany at the universities of Halle and Jena.