NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Friedrich Robert Helmert

Friedrich Robert Helmert (* July 31, 1843 in Freiberg, Saxonia; † June 15, 1917 in Potsdam) was a celebrated German geodesist and an important writer on the theory of errors. is the 212th day of the year (213th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1843 (MDCCCXLIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Freiberg is the name of two cities in Germany (note there is also a Freiburg) Freiberg, Saxony Freiberg (Neckar) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... is the 166th day of the year (167th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ... Potsdam is the capital city of the federal state of Brandenburg in Germany. ... This article or section should include material from Erdmessung. ...

After schooling in Freiberg and Dresden Helmert entered the Polytechnische Schule, now Technische Universität, in Dresden to study engineering science in 1859. Finding him especially enthusiastic about geodesy, one of his teachers, August Nagel, hired him while still a student to work on the triangulation of the Erzgebirge and the drafting of the trigonometric network for Saxony. In 1863 Helmert became Nagel's assistant on the Central European Arc Measurement. After a year's study of mathematics and astronomy Helmert obtained his doctor's degree from the University of Leipzig in 1867 for a thesis based on his work for Nagel. For other uses, see Dresden (disambiguation). ... Year 1859 (MDCCCLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Location Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DED Capital Dresden Minister-President Georg Milbradt (CDU) Governing parties CDU / SPD Votes in Bundesrat 4 (from 69) Basic statistics Area 18,416 kmÂ² (7,110 sq mi) Population 4,252,000 (11/2006)[1] - Density 231 /km... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The University of Leipzig (German UniversitÃ¤t Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony (former Kingdom of Saxony), Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. ... Year 1867 (MDCCCLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

In 1870 Helmert became instructor and in 1872 professor at RWTH Aachen, the new Technical University in Aachen. At Aachen he wrote Die mathematischen und physikalischen Theorien der höheren Geodäsie (Part I was published in 1880 and Part II in 1884). This work laid the foundations of modern geodesy. See history of geodesy. 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... RWTH Aachen University is a large university located in Aachen (Germany). ... Oche redirects here; in darts the oche is the line from which players must throw. ... Geodetic pillar (1855); Ostend, Belgium Archive with lithography plates for maps of Bavaria in the Landesamt fÃ¼r Vermessung und Geoinformation in Munich Geodesy (IPA North American English ; British, Australian English etc. ... Man has always been interested in the Earth on which he lives. ...

The method of least squares had been introduced into geodesy by Gauss and Helmert wrote a fine book on least squares (1872, with a second edition in 1907) in this tradition. Hald (p. 633) gives this assessment: "[It] is a pedagogical masterpiece; it became a standard text until it was superseded by expositions using matrix algebra." In 1876 Helmert published an article deriving the distribution of the sample variance for a normal population. The work was described in German textbooks, including his own, but the English statisticians 'Student' and Fisher did not know of it and re-derived the distribution. In regression analysis, least squares, also known as ordinary least squares analysis, is a method for linear regression that determines the values of unknown quantities in a statistical model by minimizing the sum of the residuals (the difference between the predicted and observed values) squared. ... Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss or GauÃŸ ( ; Latin: ) (30 April 1777 â€“ 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and scientist of profound genius who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, electrostatics, astronomy, and optics. ... Year 1876 Pick up Sticks(MDCCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The normal distribution, also called the Gaussian distribution, is an important family of continuous probability distributions, applicable in many fields. ... William Sealy Gosset (June 13, 1876 – October 16, 1937) was a chemist and statistician, better known by his pen name Student. ... Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, FRS (17 February 1890 â€“ 29 July 1962) was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist. ...

From 1887 Helmert was professor of advanced geodesy at the University of Berlin and director of the Geodetic Institute. In 1916 he had a stroke and died of its effects the following year. 1887 (MDCCCLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... There is no institution called the University of Berlin, but there are four universities in Berlin, Germany: Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) Technical University of Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin) Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der...

Helmert received many honours. He was president of the global geodetic association of "Internationale Erdmessung", member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin and recipient of some 25 German and foreign decorations. This article or section should include material from Erdmessung. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ...

See also: Helmert transformation, coordinate system, Helmert-Wolf blocking, national survey, terrestrial gravity field In mathematics as applied to geometry, physics or engineering, a coordinate system is a system for assigning a tuple of numbers to each point in an n-dimensional space. ... This article contains information that is not verifiable. ... The gravity field is the field of force, caused by the gravitation of the Earth, and influenced by the Earth rotation, the atmosphere and by geological bodies. ...

Bibliography

Walther Fischer "Helmert, Friedrich Robert" Dictionary of Scientific Biography volume 7, pp. 239-241, New York: Scribners 1973.

Anders Hald (1998) A History of Mathematical Statistics from 1750 to 1930 New York: Wiley.

O. B. Sheynin (1995). Helmert's work in the theory of errors. Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 49, 73-104.

Die Genauigkeit der Formel von Peters zur Berechnung des wahrscheinlichen Fehlers directer Beobachtungen gleicher Genauigkeit, Astron. Nach., 88, (1876), 192-218) An extract from the paper is translated and annotated in H. A. David & A. W. F. Edwards (eds.) Annotated Readings in the History of Statistics, New York: Springer 2001.

External links

Royal Society citation 1908 (very succinct)

There is an obituary at

MNRAS 78 (1918) 256

There is a photograph of Helmert at

Helmert on the Portraits of Statisticians page

and three more at

Helmert

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External links

Bibliography