Michael Friedrich Wild

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Michael Friedrich Wild (born February 8, 1747 in Durlach , † April 30, 1832 in Müllheim (Baden) ) was a German geodesist and naturalist . He established a new system of measures and weights in the Grand Duchy of Baden .

Life

Epitaph by Friedrich Michael Wild on the north side of the Margarethen Chapel in Müllheim

Wild was the son of Durlach merchant and mayor Ludwig Adam Wild and his wife Maria Dorothea nee. Uhland from Tübingen, a great aunt of the poet Ludwig Uhland . The family was descended on the paternal side of French immigrants named Willet or Guillet. The mother died in 1750; In 1752 his father married Maria Margaretha Groos (Groß) from Haltingen . Michael Friedrich grew up first in this family in Durlach, later with an uncle, Oberamtmann Conrad Friedrich Wild in Emmendingen .

After training as a writer, Wild studied camera science in Göttingen , which was connected with studying mathematics, geodesy , astronomy and physics. His professional career began at an agricultural estate with a brewery in Mühlburg near Karlsruhe, where he was soon promoted to manager. After three years, Wild went on study trips to England, France and the Netherlands to explore local farming methods. Since 1777 he was a teacher at the reform educationally oriented École militaire of Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel in Colmar gradually took from there barometric altitude measurements . The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 moved him to return to Baden. There he was accepted by an uncle, the chief bailiff Emanuel Gross in Müllheim , in whose office he subsequently lived. Wild continued his geodetic investigations here and published smaller articles or worked as a co-author until he was finally commissioned to introduce a new system of measurements and weights for bathing. As early as 1787, Wild was appointed to the Princely Ysenburg Council, then in 1809 to the Baden Court Councilor and in 1818 to the secret Court Councilor of Baden. In 1830 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Zähringer Lion .

Michael Friedrich Wild was friends with Johann Georg Schlosser , Joseph Albrecht von Ittner , Johann Georg Jacobi and Johann Peter Hebel , whose poem Der Morgenstern he set to music.

In the last years of his life, Wild taught talented boys in Müllheim in mathematics, physics, astronomy and geodesy. Since his activity in Colmar, he had had a physical cabinet for this purpose , which Grand Duke Karl Friedrich acquired after his death and handed over to the University of Heidelberg and the Physical Cabinet in Karlsruhe.

Wild's grave is located on the north side of the former Margaret Chapel in Müllheim. The refurbished, drained and newly set epitaph has been preserved even if the text has become partially illegible.

Services

In the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, there were often different location-based units of measurement, often with the same name. Since the 17th century there have been efforts to standardize measurement and measurement, but these failed because of the large number of territorial lords who were intent on independence. However, these units of measurement were also very different locally, so that numerous different dimensions were used in Baden . With a decree of the Margrave Karl Friedrich of January 6, 1802, a commission was entrusted with the development of a uniform system of measurements and weights for the Margraviate of Baden . Through the mediation of Johann Gottfried Tulla , who valued Michael Friedrich Wild's achievements very much, he became a member of the commission. " The commission was initially me, " said Wild.

Together with an employee, Wild recorded the weights and measures used on site throughout the entire country, which had expanded significantly from the Electorate of Baden to the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1806 . “ The results of the Maas investigations in general showed something really deterrent, namely that one had to visit over 120 calibration sites in the Grand Duchy, because in each one, if not in all parts, but in some of them there was something of its own, which made it a legal special measure had raised for others. “In the Grand Duchy of Baden there were 112 cubits, 92 square or field measures, 65 wood measures, 163 fruit measures (volume measures), 123 ohm or bucket measures, 63 inn or bar measures and 80 pound weights.

Wild himself was an advocate of uniform dimensions for all of Germany, according to the introduction attempted in France in the course of the revolution . In doing so, however, he incurred the displeasure of many responsible persons in the Grand Duchy. As a result of his work, Wild proposed a system derived from the demands of nature, trade, the police and the currently still common measures and weights, derived from the demands of nature, trade, the police in his two-volume work Ueber Allgemeine Maas und WEIGHT , which retained the traditional units and as a size in each case the middle of the found measurements. He chose the new sizes in such a way that simple conversion factors resulted for the metric units and as many units as possible depended on one another through decimal divisions .

A decree based on the system proposed by Wild was issued on November 10, 1810, but its practical implementation lasted until the Maas order was promulgated for the Grand Duchy of Baden on August 7, 1829.

Appreciation

Michael Friedrich Wild contributed to the consolidation of the newly created Grand Duchy of Baden through his work. However, it was only a small state in the post-Napoleonic European structure. The work of Wild was therefore of little importance for the renewal of European measurement and measurement. His reference to the decimal system in his work on the division of weights and measures is viewed rather critically, while the thoroughness of the investigations he carried out on the spot is generally praised.

Works

Wikisource: Michael Friedrich Wild  - Sources and full texts

literature

  • Gustav Bacherer: Biography of M. Fr. Wild . Foreword to: Michael Friedrich Wild: Experiments and observations in the field of physics . Munich 1834 ( Google book )
  • Friedrich Feßenbecker: Michael Friedrich Wild, the founder of the Baden measure and weight , in: Das Markgräflerland 1961, pages 185–188 ( digitized version )
  • Bernhard Trub: Michael Friedrich Wild. Founder of the Baden measure and weight , Müllheim 2013, ISBN 978-3-940552-03-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Trub, p. 17
  2. ↑ Six letters from Hebel to Wild have been received online
  3. ^ Trub, p. 75 ff.
  4. ↑ Trub, p. 79 f.
  5. ^ Trub, p. 41 ff.
  6. ↑ Ueber generales Maas and weight , Volume 2, p. X online
  7. ↑ August Schiebe : Universal Lexicon of Commercial Sciences . Volume 1, Friedrich Fleischer / Gebrüder Schumann, Leipzig / Zwickau 1837, p. 421 online
  8. ^ Trub, p. 49
  9. ↑ Großherzoglich-Badisches Regierungsblatt, 1810, pp. 335–337 online
  10. ↑ Digitized online
  11. ^ Trub, p. 53
personal data
SURNAME Wild, Michael Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geodesist and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1747
PLACE OF BIRTH Durlach
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1832
Place of death Muellheim (Baden)