Ivo Bauersima

Ivo Bauersima (born September 17, 1931 as Ivo Baueršíma in Jihlava , Czechoslovakia ) is a Czechoslovak- Swiss astronomer and geodesist . His main research interests are fundamental astronomy and determining the orbit of earth satellites.

Life

Bauersima studied at the Geodetic Faculty of the Technical University in Prague ; his major was geodetic astronomy . During his academic years 1953-1956 he worked as an assistant at the astronomical-geophysical institute with Emil Buchar . In the years 1956–1962 he worked as head of an astronomical group of the Czechoslovak Geodetic and Topographical Institute, first at Laplace points of the Czechoslovak geodetic fixed point network , later at the fundamental geodetic station Pecný in Ondřejov near Prague in the field of astronomical time determination . In the years 1961–1968 Bauersima worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Astronomy and Geophysics at the Technical University of Prague. In 1966 he passed the candidate exam in methodology of science, astronomical geodesy, geophysics, and mathematical methods of physics. Work on his dissertation was interrupted in 1968 when the Warsaw Pact troops marched into Czechoslovakia . In August 1968 he emigrated to Switzerland with his wife Nadia Antipová and his son.

Here he worked from 1968 to 1977 as an assistant at the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern . Research work in the field of satellite geodesy (optical direction and laser distance observations, theory, preparation of research plans and funding) and teaching in astrometric internships. At the same time he was working on his new dissertation on the definition of an inertial system . In 1976 he received a doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy and Natural Sciences at the University of Bern. 1978 Bauersima was appointed senior assistant. In 1981 he received his habilitation (Venia docendi: for fundamental astronomy and dynamics of the earth's body ). The topic of the habilitation thesis was the general discussion about the rotation of a non-rigid earth model , 1980. From 1981, Bauersima held special lectures at the University of Bern in the subjects of fundamental astronomy , continuum mechanics , equilibrium figures of rotating liquids, global geodynamics, astrometry (including radio interferometry ) and satellite geodesy. In the years 1981–1988 he gave regular lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in the subject of astronomical geodesy. From 1980 he became a member of the Geodetic Commission of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences . Between 1976 and 1987 he was a member of various special groups of the International Geodetic Association . In 1989 he was awarded the titular professorship at the University of Bern.

His son is the writer and director Igor Bauersima .

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Bauersima is the author and co-author of over 30 scientific and technical texts and a number of study texts in the subjects of fundamental astronomy, global geodynamics and astronomical geodesy.

In the publication series Mitteilungen of the Zimmerwald satellite observation station , among other things, he developed radio interferometric methods for observing coherent radio signals from the GPS satellite system and evaluating them for geodetic and geodynamic purposes under the series numbers 7, 10, 12, 13, 15 . As a further application of these observations combined with (relative) astrometric observations of these satellites and with the radiointerferometric observations of quasars , he designed a method for the directional linking of the star and quasar catalogs ( communications from the Zimmerwald satellite observation station. No. 13, p. 20). A new satellite laser telescope was designed at the Zimmerwald observatory in 1995 to do justice to this task.

Bauersima retired in 1996.

Appreciation

Bauersima created the theoretical basis for the geodynamic use of GPS in today's accuracy. His formulas for the interferometric methods of observing reconstructed carriers of GPS radio signals made it possible to achieve a position resolution 10,000 times higher than that originally offered by the US military; this on condition that the orbits of the GPS satellites and the parameters of the rotation of the earth are also determined. For this purpose, the observation data from GPS receiving stations around the world should be evaluated together. This gave rise to the idea of ​​an international GPS network, which led to the establishment of the International GPS Service in Edinburgh in August 1989 . Scientific and civil uses of radio-interferometric GPS observations, such as B. the determinations of tectonic plate displacements , mainland tides and pole fluctuations , control of the stability of the oil rigs , land surveying , etc. achieve an accuracy of a few millimeters today.

By Bauersima fundamental contribution to the use of GPS was inspired to build the observatory Zimmerwald to Swiss fundamental station and the Software Bernese GPS to develop what the world genauesten calculation models for GNSS - satellite orbits provides and geodynamic parameters. Today it is used at over 200 research institutes. Bauersima also initiated numerous research and industrial collaborations, in particular with Leica Geosystems and the Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo) .

Web links

• Publications by I. Bauersima in the Astrophysics Data System