Heinrich Wild


Wild, Heinrich

 

(in Russian, Genrikh Ivanovich Vil’d). Born Dec. 17, 1833, in Uster, Zurich canton; died Aug. 23, 1902, in Zurich. Physicist and geophysicist. Swiss by de-scent.

Wild was educated in Zurich, Konigsberg, and Heidelberg. From 1858 to 1868 he was a professor of physics and director of the astronomical observatory in Bern. In 1868 he was chosen academician extraordinary of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and director of the Central Physical Observatory. He established a network of meteorological stations in Switzerland and Russia and constructed several physical and meteorological devices. Wild organized the processing and verification of meteorological observations. He was president of the International Meteorological Committee (from 1879) and president of the International Polar Commission (from 1880). In 1894 he returned to Switzerland.

WORKS

O temperature vozdukha v Rossiiskoi Imperil. St. Petersburg, 1882.
Ob osadkakh v Rossiiskoi Imperil. St. Petersburg, 1888.

REFERENCES

Rykachev, M. A.“Vil’d, G. I.” (obituary). Izv. AN, 1902, vol. 17.
I. Sh. [Shpindler, I. B. fon.]“G. I. Vil’d” (obituary). Meteorologicheskii vestnik, 1902, vol. 12.