Johann Jakob Rebstein

Johann Jakob Rebstein

Johann Jakob Rebstein , also Jacob Rebstein, (born May 4, 1840 in Töss (Winterthur) , † March 14, 1907 in Zurich ) was a Swiss mathematician and geodesist .

Life

Johann Jakob Rebstein was the son of an innkeeper and baker. He attended the industrial school in Winterthur, where he already attracted attention for his mathematical skills. From 1857 he studied engineering at the Zurich Polytechnic, then with the aim of becoming a math and physics teacher. After graduation, he continued his studies at the Collège de France in Paris and also wanted to study in Göttingen, but had to accept a teaching position after his father's death in order to support the family. He taught mathematics at the canton school in Frauenfeld and from 1877 at the canton school in Zurich. After his habilitation in 1873 he was also a private lecturer at the polytechnic. In 1895 he received his doctorate from the University of Berlin ( determination of all real minimal surfaces that contain a set of flat curves to which the meridians correspond on the Gaussian sphere ). In 1896 he became adjunct professor at the Polytechnic and in 1898 he was given a full professorship in geodesy, numerical methods such as error calculation and actuarial mathematics.

From 1863 to 1881 he was also a consultant in land surveying for the canton of Thurgau, from 1881 to 1894 for St. Gallen, from 1886 to 1892 for Zurich and from 1894 to 1907 for Lucerne. He did not carry out any major surveying tasks himself, but instead monitored and corrected the geodetic work of others, with experienced geodesists such as Friedrich Gustav Gauß , Friedrich Robert Helmert and Wilhelm Jordan also seeking his advice. He was on the Swiss Committee for Geodesy and was the geometer in the Swiss Concordat from 1868 and its president from 1887 to 1907. He was also an actuary and auditor for Swiss life insurances and pension funds. For this he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905. For several years he was President of the Thurgau Natural Research Society. He was involved in the preparation of the first international mathematicians' congress in Zurich (1897).

Fonts

• Textbook on practical geometry with special consideration of theodolite measurement, 1868
• The cartography of Switzerland, represented in its historical development, 1883

Web links

• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  Johann Jakob Rebstein. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johann Jakob Rebstein in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)