Johann Jacob Baeyer

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Johann Jacob Baeyer, oil painting by Paul Stankiewicz , in the Geo Research Center Potsdam

Johann Jacob Baeyer (born November 5, 1794 in Müggelheim , † September 10, 1885 in Berlin ) was a Prussian officer , most recently lieutenant general , and as a geodesist the founder of the European degree measurement.

Life

He was the son of the farmer and school teacher Jakob Baeyer (born May 3, 1769 in Müggelheim; † January 7, 1828 there) and his wife Elisabeth Margarete, née Tisch (* August 25, 1768 in Müggelheim; † December 20, 1822 there) .

Baeyer attended the Müggelheim village school and, with the support of the Köpenick pastor Gronau, received a free position at the Joachimsthal School in Berlin in 1810 .

He joined the 3rd East Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 4 as a volunteer hunter on February 26, 1813 and participated in the campaigns of 1813, 1814 and 1815. During the war of liberation he became an officer and when mobilization began in 1815, he was promoted to second lieutenant and sent to Aachen to help set up the Rhenish Landwehr . After a long time in northern France without combat operations, he decided to remain a soldier and then attended the military school newly built by Gneisenau in Koblenz , where he was particularly concerned with topographical work. General Karl von Müffling commissioned Baeyer - first in Koblenz, then in Erfurt - with topographical work. In 1821 he was assigned to the Trigonometric Department of the Prussian General Staff . From 1826, Baeyer gave lectures at the war school.

In 1826 he married Eugenie Hitzig (1807–1843), the daughter of Julius Eduard Hitzig . With her he had four daughters Clara (* 1826), Emma (* 1831), Johanna (Jeanette) (* 1839), Adelaide (* / † 1843) and the three sons Georg (* 1829), Eduard (* 1832) and Adolf (1835-1917).

During his time as an officer as Commissioner of the General Staff, he carried out important surveying work, including the East Prussian degree measurement with the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel from 1831 to 1836 to connect the Prussian and Russian triangulation , coast measurements on the Baltic coast in the period 1837-1847, further measurements between the Oder estuary and Berlin as well as on the North Sea coast . Baeyer published the results in various books.

Portrait of Johann Jacob Baeyer
Memorial stone for Baeyer in Berlin-Müggelheim

In the meantime, Baeyer was appointed head of the trigonometric department of the General Staff, advanced to major in 1832 and became a member of the study commission in 1835. From 1835 until his retirement from the army as Lieutenant General in 1857, he directed numerous important land surveys in Prussia. In 1848, Baeyer took over the post of Royal Prussian Telegraph Director for a few months after the previous telegraph director Franz August O'Etzel left the office for health reasons. In 1858 he was put up for disposition as lieutenant general and entrusted with the execution of the part of a European longitude measurement taken over from Prussia under the 52nd  parallel circle. After leaving the Prussian General Staff in 1857, Baeyer published several scientific papers on the "Justification of Central European Degree Measurement", which aimed to measure Central Europe according to latitude and longitude and the investigation of local conditions, including the gravitational field and the curvature of the earth, as well as international cooperation.

When he proposed a Central European grade measurement in 1861 , all Central European countries united to jointly carry out this undertaking, which expanded into a European grade measurement through the accession of the other European states (except England). The practical work on Central European grade measurement began with consultations in Berlin in 1862. For the same purpose, a so-called “Central Office for European Degree Measurement” was established in Berlin in 1864 under Baeyer's direction. At Baeyer's request, the Geodetic Institute was founded in Berlin in 1869, and he was in charge of it until his death. In 1886 the institute moved to Potsdam on the Telegrafenberg. The permanent geodetic institute took care of the work on the Central European degree measurement. Baeyer made great contributions to the organizational work for the international coordination of European surveying. The "European degree measurement" was the first and up to the First World War the most important international geodetic association. The conference of 1862 is today regarded by the International Association for Geodesy as its founding conference and Johann Jacob Baeyer as its founder.

When it was founded, Baeyer was appointed head of the Geodetic Institute Berlin on January 1, 1870 , which annually published a “general report on European degree measurement”, the negotiations of the conferences of the commissioners and “publications” in individual issues.

Baeyer died of pneumonia on September 10, 1885 in his apartment at Lützowstrasse 42 in Berlin. He was buried on September 15, 1885 in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches in front of the Hallesches Tor .

Baeyer also got to know Alexander von Humboldt , who wanted to take him on a research trip, but Baeyer was unable to take part due to illness. While preparing for the trip, he acquired chemical and mineralogical knowledge, which he also passed on to his son, the later Nobel laureate in chemistry, Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917). Baeyer dedicated his work On the Size and Figure of the Earth with a tribute foreword to Alexander von Humboldt.

Baeyer and the Society for Geography in Berlin

In 1828 Baeyer was one of the small group of co-founders of the Society for Geography in Berlin. On April 20, 1828, he met in Berlin with Prof. Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Wohlers , Major Karl von Rau , Director Karl Friedrich von Klöden , Major Franz August von Etzel , Prof. Johann August Zeune and Prof. Heinrich Berghaus for a preparatory meeting. in which one agreed on the purpose of the society to be founded, the "promotion of geography in the broadest sense of the word through oral or written communication". At the founding meeting of the society on June 7, 1828, 27 people attended.

Honors

As early as 1861, Baeyer was a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Académie des Sciences Militaires, a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and an honorary member of the KK Geographical Society in Vienna. Baeyer was elected honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1865 and honorary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences in 1867 . In 1868 he was accepted as an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . He was also an honorary doctor of the University of Vienna and a member of the Italian scientific academy.

On the 100th anniversary of the International Earth Survey in 1962, his place of birth, Müggelheim, together with the Potsdam Geodetic Institute, honored him with a memorial stone at the eastern end of the village green, in close proximity to his parents' house, which was destroyed in World War II. The memorial stone is a stele with a bronze tondo of the Baeyer head in profile. It is crowned by a bronze globe on which a graticule has been engraved. The bronze work was carried out by the Füssel bronze foundry from Berlin. The inscription reads:

To the founder of the
international earth survey
1794–1885
Johann Jacob Baeyer
from Müggelheim
on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of
the international earth survey
in 1962

The approximately 250 m long Johann-Jacob-Baeyer-Strasse in the Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick ( Müggelheim district ) is named after Baeyer (since November 5, 1994) and the Baeyerhöhe near Lampersdorf west of Dresden , a station 1 in the 1860s Order of the Royal Saxon Triangulation . Since 1997 he has also given its name to the Baeyer Canyon , a deep-sea trench in the Lasarew Sea in Antarctica .

Important writings

  • Degree measurement in East Prussia and its connection with Prussian and Russian triangular chains. Executed by FWBessel, director of the Königsberg observatory, Baeyer, major in the general staff. Berlin 1838 (the text is from Bessel), urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10000711-6
  • Leveling between Swinoujscie and Berlin. Berlin 1840, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10001762-2
  • The coast survey and its connection with the Berlin baseline. Berlin 1849, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10000687-9
  • The connections between the Prussian and Russian triangular chains at Thorn and Tarnowitz. Berlin 1857
  • About the size and shape of the earth. Berlin 1861, digitized version (PDF; 4 MB)
  • Measuring on the spherical surface of the earth. Berlin 1862, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10053274-7
  • Scientific justification of the calculation method of the Central Bureau of European Degree Measurement. Berlin 1869–1871, 3 issues
  • Comparison of some of the main triangular chains of the royal national triangulation with the Bessel method. Berlin 1879
  • About the leveling work in the Prussian state and the presentation of their results at correct sea levels. Berlin 1881

Under Baeyer's direction, the Geodetic Institute has been publishing a “general report on European grade measurement” every year since 1863, the negotiations of the conferences of the commissioners and “publications” in individual issues, e.g. B.

  • The Rhenish Triangle Network, Volume II, Berlin 1878

Related topics

literature

  • Siegmund Günther:  Baeyer, Johann Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 46, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1902, pp. 281-287.
  • Fritz Mühlig:  Baeyer, Johann Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 536 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ernst Buschmann: From the life and work of Johann Jacob Baeyer . In: News from the mapping and surveying system , Volume 112, 1994, Institute for Applied Geodesy, Berlin.
  • Karl Reicheneder: memorial stone for JJBaeyer . In: Zeitschrift für Vermessungswesen (zfv), No. 11/1962, p. 456.
  • Wolfgang Dick: On the prehistory of the Central European degree measurement . Contributions to the JJ Baeyer Symposium, Berlin-Köpenick, 5. – 6. November 1994, German Geodetic Commission, Series E, Volume 25, 1996, Frankfurt a. M.
  • Herbert Pieper: Johann Jacob Baeyer . Contributions to the JJ Baeyer Symposium, Berlin-Köpenick, 5. – 6. November 1994. German Geodetic Commission, Series E, Volume 25, 1996, Frankfurt a. M.
  • Joachim Höpfner: Johann Jacob Baeyer - an excellent geodesist of the 19th century. (PDF; 7 MB). Lecture at the conference on questions of scientific geodesy on the occasion of the start of work on the "Central European degree measurement" 150 years ago; Berlin, September 14, 2012.
  • Th. Albrecht: Death notice . In: Astronomische Nachrichten , Volume 112, 1885, p. 377. (Obituary for JJ Baeyer) bibcode : 1885AN .... 112..377.

Web links

Commons : Johann Jacob Baeyer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johann Jacob Baeyer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ August Woldt: The Society for Geography in Berlin . In: The Gazebo . Issue 18, 1878, pp. 294–296 (with illustration by Baeyer).
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Volume 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Series 3, volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 30.
  3. ^ Member entry by Johann Jakob Baeyer (with a link to an obituary) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 10, 2017.
  4. ^ Johann-Jacob-Baeyer-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  5. ↑ The Rheinische triangle mesh GFZpublic, Helmholtz Center Potsdam
personal data
SURNAME Baeyer, Johann Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian officer, geodesist and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Müggelheim
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1885
Place of death Berlin