Rudolf Fuess

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Heinrich Ludwig Rudolf Fuess (born September 28, 1838 in Moringen ; † November 21, 1917 in Berlin ) was a German mechanic who developed innovative precision devices for science , especially meteorology and petrography .

Life

Polarizing microscope according to Harry Rosenbusch (Fuess, 1890)
Band chronograph (Fuess, late 19th century)
Grave of Rudolf Fuess in the old churchyard of the St. Jacobi community in Berlin-Neukölln

Rudolf Fuess was the tenth child of Ludwig Fuess and Johanna Fuess, geb. Bilz. During his training at Mechanicus Hermann Pfaff in Göttingen 1853-1857 visited Fuess at the local university lectures in mathematics , physics and optics , among others, Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Johann Benedict Listing . After completing his apprenticeship, he stayed with Pfaff for six months, then moved to his friend Hugo Schröder in Hamburg and in 1860 became an assistant in the R. Löhmann company in Berlin, which manufactured leveling instruments.

In 1865 Fuess founded his own workshop at Mauerstraße 84 in Berlin-Mitte . In the following years the company moved again and again, in 1870 to Wasserthorstrasse 46 in Berlin-Kreuzberg and 1873 to Alte Jakobstrasse 108. In 1891 the now strongly expanded company moved into a new factory building in Dünther Strasse in Berlin-Steglitz .

Rudolf Fuess's opto-mechanical workshop initially produced pharmacist scales , blood pressure monitors and microscopes . Via Karl Heinrich Schellbach , for whom he had done a small job, Fuess got in touch with Wilhelm Foerster , the director of the Berlin observatory , for whom he manufactured a chronograph. Orders for the normal calibration commission followed , of which Foerster was director from 1870. At the beginning of the 1870s, Fuess built a "crystallographic-optical universal apparatus" based on the plans of the mineralogist Paul Groth . Further, continuously improved versions of this device were subsequently sold to several European laboratories. After initially producing thin sections of sent rock samples in the workshop , Fuess, in cooperation with Justus Roth, also offered systematic thin section collections from 1868 onwards, which were sold worldwide. From the mid-1880s onwards, he also sold the machines for producing thin sections. In 1875 he manufactured the first petrographic microscope from German production for Harry Rosenbusch . From 1900 onwards, rangefinders and riflescopes were increasingly manufactured for the military.

From around 1875, Fuess began manufacturing meteorological instruments such as anemometers in addition to optical devices . After the Greiner & Geißler company was taken over in 1877, the range of products was expanded to include thermometers and barometers . As a result, the workshop meteorological precision instruments left, developed the Fuess in collaboration with major forecasters, such as the Aspiration of Richard Assmann and the vessel lifter barometer of Heinrich von Wild . He met the growing demand for recording devices, for example, with the balance barograph and the photogrammetric cloud automaton from Adolf Sprung and the rain recorder from Gustav Hellmann . Rudolf Fuess was soon the undisputed leading manufacturer of meteorological precision instruments in Germany. Many of his developments were as normal instrument recommended and could for calibration are used. In addition to the scientists, he also supplied industry. His anemometers were used in mines, his thermometers in the chemical industry and his hygrometers in tobacco factories.

In 1913 Fuess passed the business on to his son Paul Fuess (1867–1944), who had been a partner since 1905. Rudolf Fuess died in 1917 and was buried in the old cemetery of the St. Jacobi community in Berlin-Neukölln . His grave was dedicated to the city of Berlin from 1990 to 2015 .

Fuess was a founding member of the Berlin Mechanics and Opticians Association . His successor organization, the German Society for Mechanics and Optics , he represented together with Carl Bamberg in the commission for the establishment of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt , of which he was a member of the board of trustees until his death. He was co-founder and editor of the Zeitschrift für Instrumentenkunde . He was also a member of the German Meteorological Society .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Fuess, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fuess, Heinrich Ludwig Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German precision mechanic
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Moringen
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1917
Place of death Berlin