Heinrich Wild
Heinrich Wild (* November 15, 1877 in Mitlödi, Canton of Glarus, † December 26, 1951 in Baden) was a Swiss surveyor, inventor and company founder.
Life
At 15, he entered into a practical teaching at the former Linth engineer Legler in Glarus a ( Linth engineer = hydraulic engineer for the River Linth ). He bought a small angle measuring instrument and did so independently after a short time expanded recordings of run of the Linth. Later he attended the Geometerschule in Winterthur in 1899 as an intern for the Office of Topography, Bern. The director of this office soon recognized the exceptional talents of the young man. In 1900 he was appointed engineer III. Chosen class of this federal authority. He worked as a topographer, Nivelleur and Triangulationsingenieur.
There were parallels to the work of Albert Einstein in Bern, Einstein worked as a Technical Expert III. Class from 1902 in the Federal Patent Office in Bern operates. Both were married over 23 -year-old and lived in Bern. Both left Bern after about seven years. In 1930, were both from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ ) were appointed as honorary doctors ( doctor honoris causa ).
Due to its efficiency game was promoted to engineer, First Class. In addition to the verification of forest surveying him transferred the management, the treatment of instrumental questions after they had recognized his outstanding talent in this field correctly.
Wild was certainly not the only trigonometers, which follows the design of the conventional theodolites so many did not fit. With him, however, met with a critical mind in a happy way, together with an ingenious inventiveness. Due to his bad experience with the Hochgebirgstriangulation with a theodolite conventional design, he tried in 1905 to construct a new theodolite, which filled an erected by himself requirement: In simpler axle system with verdrehbarem circle should ever two opposite circular parts can be read in both positions of the telescope may, without the observer had to leave his place in front of the telescope.
1907 Wild resigned from the country's topography and moved soon after to Jena to set up a new department for the construction of geodetic instruments at the company Carl Zeiss. He began with the development of leveling. According to the Abbe transfer " enter into new areas of practical optics consists only of goods, which emerged from our own work, not at all or not been prepared in the same way by others were ," these instruments differed markedly from the usual. Cylindrical vertical axis, foundation bolts, internal focusing, in particular the coincidence dragonfly were revolutionary innovations. The optical theodolite was the retained wild in principle to the present day form.
In 1921, Wild returned to Switzerland and founded by Robert Helbling, who ran a surveying office, and the politician Jacob Schmidheiny his own company, the " Heinrich Wild, Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Optics ", later renamed " Wild Heerbrugg " and became world famous. It was here that in addition to a number of other surveying instruments " Universaltheodolit Wild" (later known as the Wild T2 ), the " Präzisionstheodolit " ( Wild T3 ) and the "Stereo Autograph Wild" (Wild A1 ) for the evaluation of aerial photographs. This wild computed new lenses, which represented a major step forward. He led the optical calculations according to its own method, which allowed him to drive significant corrections further than was previously the case.
It may be typical of the wild inventor that he cared little about the economic things of his farm, in this field rather was entirely dependent on the support of his co-owners. This development found its consequent climax when he retired in 1932 even from his own company to be able to operate free from the constant pressure of a manufacturing company as a freelance designer and inventor can.
Until his death on December 26, 1951, he designed for Kern & Co. AG, Aarau, among others, the legendary DK1, DKM1, DM2, and DKM2 DKM3.
Work
Wild operated mainly in the fields of optics, mechanics, surveying and photogrammetry. He was certainly the person that the development of surveying instruments and their influence in the first half of the 20th century and most greatly contributed to the development of modern surveying instruments. The foundation of the " Heinrich Wild, Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Optics " he directed in 1921 also the successful development of the company history of a Leica.