He attended the city school to learn read and write, and he was tought additional private lessons.
At the age of 15, he entered the Leipzig university.
At the age of 16, he studied jurisprudence at the university in Helmstedt.
When he was 18 years old, his father died and he went to Jena to study at the university there.
To complete his studies, he studied in Leiden(Netherlands). He especially looked into problems of constructing fortresses there and Mathematics, Mechanics and Geometry were the most important subjects.
After finishing his studies, he went on a journey through France and England as young men of noble houses were entitled to.
At the age of 24, he returned to Magdeburg and married shortly thereafter.
He was admitted to the council of aldermen, and he was responsible for architectural affairs.
Magdeburg was destroyed by Tilly. Gericke went to Brunswick with his family and to Erfurt to work as a construction engineer in Swedish services.
In 1632, he returned to Magdeburg as construction engineer to help rebuilding the city.
In 1646, Gericke was elected mayor of Magdeburg.
Guericke was conducting several scientific experiments in his yard. Thus, he invented the water barometer and did research with a rotating sulphur sphere.
In 1650, he invented the air pump.
He demonstrated his experiments in 1654 at the Imperial Diet in Regensburg and in 1657 at the emperor`s court in Vienna.
In 1661, he invented the manometer and the electrostatic machine.
In 1663, he finished his work "Experimenta nova Magdeburgia de vacuo spatio" ("New Magdeburg Experiments About the Vacuum"), published in Amsterdam 1671.
In the same year he also travelled to Berlin to demonstrate his experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres to the German Elector Friedrich Wilhelm.
On January 4, 1666, Otto Gericke was raised to the peerage by the emperor Leopold I. and was now called Otto von Guericke.
In 1678, after younger aldermen more and more denied his priviledges, he retired.
In 1681, Otto von Guericke left Magdeburg and moved to his son in Hamburg.
On May 11, 1686, the diplomat and scientist died at the age of 83 in his son`s house.
Guericke`s son arranged for the return of the dead to Magdeburg.