Alfred Berroth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alfred Berroth (born November 20, 1892 in Dörzbach , † December 7, 1978 in Stuttgart ) was a German geodesist .

Life

After his school days in Ulm , Alfred Berroth studied surveying at the Technical University of Stuttgart from 1910 and passed his exams to become a qualified engineer in 1913 . He then gained his first scientific experience as a personal computer from Friedrich Robert Helmert at the Geodetic Institute in Potsdam . As a result of Helmert's suggestion, the topic " The shape of the earth and the main moments of inertia of the earth in the equator from measurements of gravity " emerged, which Berroth again selected for his doctorate in 1915 at the TH Stuttgart under Ernst von Hammer and Karl Richard von Koch (1852-1924) would have.

After the turmoil of the First World War and following various scientific activities, Berroth was appointed observer at the Astronomical Geodetic Observatory of the Potsdam Institute in 1924. A year later he completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg . In 1926 he was appointed full professor at the Agricultural University of Berlin , only one year later he moved again and took over the chair of geodesy at RWTH Aachen University as successor to Paul Gast, with the main area of ​​responsibility being gravity measurements , gravitational fields and the surface shape of the earth and their geometric definition on. Although Berroth had never joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party, he was appointed dean by his incumbent rector Otto Gruber in 1933 , who wanted to make it clear that scientific achievements were more important to him than a party book. Nevertheless, from 1934 Berroth had increasingly turned to military science tasks and taught the students, among other things, the evaluation of aerial photographs. This pro-regime attitude led to Berroth's transfer by the Reich Ministry of Education in 1939, initially as a technical war administrator to the Army Weapons Office in Berlin and finally a few months later to the chair of higher geodesy and spherical astronomy at the Technical University of Vienna .

After the end of the Second World War he returned to his Swabian homeland and in 1945 was entrusted with the representation of the chair for geodesy at the TH Stuttgart. In the following years, Berroth only worked as a freelancer in order to be able to devote himself more to his scientific work at home and abroad and to his more than 100 publications, of which in particular the handbook and textbook Cosmic Geodesy, written in 1960 with Walter Hofmann, is known attained. In addition, he was a research assistant at the German Geodetic Research Institute in Munich from 1951 , before he finally officially retired in 1953. In 1963, Alfred Berroth was awarded the title of Dr. Ing. Honored by the University of Bonn .

Berroth was an advocate of high-target triangulation for bridging marine areas, with which he - well before the time - proposed the use of rockets and satellites as geodetic target points. In addition, he was known for his affinity to applied geophysics , where he argued that the geodetic concept formation should be converted from the purely geometric perspective to a general physical formalization.

Memberships

Works (selection)

  • The shape of the earth and the main moments of inertia A and B of the earth in the equator from measurements of gravity , Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1915; dissertation
  • The usual ellipsoids and the vertical deviations , Potsdam, Telegraphenberg: Preuss. Geodesic. Institute, 1922
  • About the measurement of the variation in gravity caused by the sun and moon, taking into account the dynamic sea tides , Berlin: Weidmann, 1932
  • Handbook of surveying / vol. 2. Field and land measurement, 1950, 10th, revised. Ed.
  • Direct measurement of Laplace's equation through simultaneous observation of azimuth differences on two stations , Bamberg: Bamberger Verlagshaus, 1951
  • Cosmic Geodesy , Alfred Berroth and Walter Hofmann; Karlsruhe: Braun, 1960

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Berroth, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geodesist
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Dörzbach
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1978
Place of death Stuttgart