William Petit Trowbridge

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William P. Trowbridge

William Petit Trowbridge (born May 25, 1828 in Troy , New York , † August 12, 1892 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American military engineer, and geophysicist .

Life

Trowbridge was accepted into the United States Military Academy (West Point) at the age of 16 , where he lectured in chemistry as a cadet and graduated in 1848 as the best engineer of his year. He was then assigned to the Corps of Topographical Engineers , a military unit responsible for such tasks as cartography and building lighthouses or coastal fortifications . After a short time he went back to West Point as a research assistant in the astronomical department.

In 1851 he was assigned to Alexander Dallas Bache and his United States Coast Survey (now the National Geodetic Survey ), for which he was involved in surveying the Maine coast and the James River and Appomattox River in Virginia . From 1853 he carried out studies of geomagnetism and tides on the entire west coast of the United States from California . He used his spare time to collect several thousand specimens on the natural history of the West Coast, which he gave to the University of Michigan .

At the end of 1856, Trowbridge left the military to initially accept a professorship in mathematics at the University of Michigan , but after a year moved to a civilian post on the Coast Survey in Washington, DC When the Civil War broke out , many employees who were sympathetic to the southern states left the authorities and took all the cards with them to the ports of the south. Trowbridge was hired to create new maps from the original survey data. General Joseph Gilbert Totten selected him for the post of chief engineer in New York City , where he was responsible for building a fort at Willets Point (later Fort Totten ) and repairing and converting Fort Schuyler and the fortifications on Governors Island . In addition, the replenishment of the engineering corps belonged to his tasks as well as the construction of temporary facilities for the army, such as pontoon bridges or siege and fortification structures.

After the end of the war, Trowbridge became president of the Novelty Iron Works , the largest mechanical engineering company in New York at the time, which specialized in ship engines , among other things . When the company was closed in 1869 in connection with a shipbuilding crisis, Trowbridge accepted a professorship in mechanical engineering (dynamical engineering) at Sheffield Scientific School ( Yale University ). He served on the Board of Directors of the New Haven , Connecticut Port Authority , and was Connecticut Adjutant General , the highest Army officer in the state of Connecticut, from 1873 to 1876 , on appeal from Governor Charles Roberts Ingersoll . In 1877 Trowbridge accepted a professorship in civil engineering at Columbia University , which he held until his death. He made a contribution to the development of the cantilever bridge .

In 1872 Trowbridge was elected to the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences , in 1874 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1879 (or 1880) he received an honorary doctorate from Princeton University , in 1880 (or 1883) from Trinity College , in 1887 from the University of Michigan .

Trowbridge had been married to Theresa Parkman since 1857. The couple had eight children, two of whom died in infancy.

The Trowbridge shrew , the Pacific hake ( Merluccius productus = Homalopomus trowbridgii ) a type of surf perch ( Micrometrus minimus = Helconotus trowbridgii ) and the signal crab ( Pacifastacus leniusculus = Astacus Trowbridgii ) are named after him.

Fonts

  • Proposed Plan for building a Bridge across the East River at Blackwell's Island , 1869
  • Heat as a Source of Power , 1874
  • Turbine Wheels , 1879
  • Steam generator
  • Stationary steam engines

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ American Philosophical Society - Member History. In: search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved November 28, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter T. (PDF; 432 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved November 28, 2017 .
  3. ^ WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Homalopomus trowbridgii Girard, 1856. In: marinespecies.org. Retrieved December 1, 2017 .
  4. ^ WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Holconotus trowbridgii Girard, 1854. In: marinespecies.org. Retrieved December 1, 2017 .
  5. ^ WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Astacus Trowbridgii Stimpson, 1857. In: marinespecies.org. Retrieved December 1, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Trowbridge, William Petit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer and geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Troy , New York
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1892
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut