Hesse was born in Königsberg (today
Kaliningrad) as the son of Johann Gottlieb Hesse, a businessman and brewery owner and his wife Anna Karoline Reiter (1788–1865). He studied in his hometown at the
Albertina under
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi. Among his teachers were count
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel and
Friedrich Julius Richelot. He earned his doctorate in 1840 at the
University of Königsberg with the dissertation
De octo punctis intersectionis trium superficium secundi ordinis. In 1841, Hesse completed his
habilitation thesis. In the same year he married Sophie Marie Emilie Dulk, the daughter of pharmacists and chemistry professor
Friedrich Philipp Dulk (1788–1852). The couple had a son and five daughters. Hesse taught for some time physics and chemistry at the Vocational School in Königsberg and lectured at the Albertina. In 1845 he was appointed associate professor in Königsberg. In 1855 he moved to Halle and in 1856 to Heidelberg until 1868, when he finally moved to
Munich to the newly established
Polytechnic School. In 1869 he joined the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences. His doctoral students include
Olaus Henrici,
Gustav Kirchhoff,
Jacob Lüroth,
Adolph Mayer,
Carl Neumann,
Max Noether,
Ernst Schröder, and
Heinrich Martin Weber. ==Works==