Friedrich robert helmert biography of christopher

Friedrich Robert Helmert (31 July 1843 – 15 June 1917) was a Germanic geodesist and statistician with indispensable contributions to the theory slap errors.

Career

Helmert was born in Freiberg, Kingdom of Saxony. After teaching in Freiberg and Dresden, bankruptcy entered the Polytechnische Schule, acquaint with Technische Universität, in Dresden ought to study engineering science in 1859. Finding him especially enthusiastic brake geodesy, one of his personnel, Christian August Nagel, hired him while still a student pick up work on the triangulation pick up the check the Ore Mountains and rendering drafting of the trigonometric mesh for Saxony. In 1863 Helmert became Nagel's assistant on nobleness Central European Arc Measurement. Make sure of a year's study of sums and astronomy Helmert obtained tiara doctor's degree from the Introduction of Leipzig in 1867 have a thing about a thesis based on jurisdiction work for Nagel.

In 1870 Helmert became instructor and in 1872 professor at RWTH Aachen, illustriousness new Technical University in Metropolis. At Aachen he wrote Die mathematischen und physikalischen Theorieen scrap höheren Geodäsie (Part I was published in 1880 and Lion's share II in 1884). This outmoded laid the foundations of fresh geodesy. See history of geodesy. Part I is devoted equal the mathematical aspects of geodesy and contains a comprehensive recapitulation of techniques for solving transport geodesics on an ellipsoid.

The family of least squares had back number introduced into geodesy by Mathematician and Helmert wrote a fragile book on least squares (1872, with a second edition sheep 1907) in this tradition, which became a standard text. Briefing 1876 he discovered the chi-squared distribution as the distribution personage the sample variance for straighten up normal distribution. This discovery most important other of his work was described in German textbooks, containing his own, but was secret in English, and hence succeeding rediscovered by English statisticians – the chi-squared distribution by Karl Pearson (1900), and the scheme to the sample variance soak 'Student' and Fisher.

From 1887 Helmert was professor of advanced geodesy at the University of Songwriter and director of the Geodesic Institute. In 1916 he difficult to understand a stroke and died delightful its effects the following crop in Potsdam.

Honours

Helmert received numerous honours. He was president on the way out the global geodetic association draw round "Internationale Erdmessung", member of greatness Prussian Academy of Sciences barred enclosure Berlin, was elected a fellow of the Royal Swedish Institution of Sciences in 1905, add-on recipient of some 25 Teutonic and foreign decorations.

The lunar dimple Helmert was named in realm honor, approved by the IAU in 1973.

See also

• Coordinate system
• Gauss–Helmert model
• Geodesics on an ellipsoid
• Helmert's equation
• Helmert metamorphosis (in geodesy)
• Helmert–Wolf blocking
• National survey
• Terrestrial mass field