Eytelwein, Johann Albert C.

(b. Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 31 December 1764; d. Berlin, Germany, 18 August 1848)

hydraulic engineering, mechanics.

Eytelwein, the son of an improverished tradesman, joined the Prussian artillery at the age of fifteen. Realizing that an army career held little promise, he studied civil engineering privately, passing the state examination for surveyor in 1786. In 1790 he qualified as civil engineer and left the army with the rank of lieutenant to enter the Prussian civil service. His first assignment was to Küstrin [now Kostrzyn] as regional superintendent of dikes of the Oderbruch, the low fertile land on the west bank of the Oder between Lebus and Schwedt.

A concern about the lack of a school or training program for engineers to staff government bureaus led Eytelwein to publish a collection of problems in applied mathematics for surveyors and engineers (Sammlung..., 1793). Eytelwein, like his French contemporary M. R. de Prony, was one of the first to write on the application of mechanics and mathematics to the design of structures and machines in order to bring rational methods to both the practicing engineer and the student. Called to Berlin in 1794 as director of the Board of Public Works, he became responsible for the regulation of many rivers of eastern Germany, including the Oder, Warthe, and connecting waterways; he also shared in planning the harbors of Memel, Pillau [Baltiysk], and Swinemunde [now Swinoujście]. In 1797 he was a cofounder of a civil engineering journal, the first in Germany, that was later carried on by Crelle as Journal für die Baukunst.

Eytelwein’s efforts on behalf of an engineering institution were realized with the founding of the Berlin Bauakademie in 1799; this was the first German engineering school of university stature and one of the two nuclei of the later Technische HochschuleBerlin. He was the first director of the Bauakademie and held that post for seven years; he also lectured on mechanics, hydraulics, hydrostatics, machine design, dike embankments, and stream regulation. In addition to writing books and articles on numerous technical topics, he served on commissions such as that which established a definitive set of weights and measures for Prussia. His Handbuch der Mechanik... (1801) was the most important book of this era, for it was the first to combine practice and theory. He was elected member of the Academy of Sciences in 1803 and lectured (1810–1815) at the recently founded University of Berlin. A man whose energy matched his ability, he was appointed director of the Prussian Public Works Deputation in 1809, to become in 1816 chief commissioner in charge of all hydraulic works of the kingdom.

Eytelwein’s health began to fail in 1825; he retired in 1830 on the fortieth anniversary of his entry into the civil service. Nevertheless, he remained active and published a major work on analytical methods in his seventy-third year. Although he became blind at eighty and deaf before his death, he continued to be concerned in the mathematical instruction of his grandchildren.

Throughout his life Eytelwein was a strong influence in the elevation of the standards of engineering education, bringing to it the analytical methods of the time. His writings were distinguished for their clarity and sweep, practice being viewed and upgraded by developing analysis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Eytelwein’s major works are Sammlung von Aufgaben aus der angewandten Mathematik für Feldmesser, Ingenieure and Baumeister (Berlin, 1793); Grundlehren der Hydraulik (Berlin, 1796); Vergleichung der in den Preussischen Staaten eingeführten Maasse und Gewichte (Berlin, 1798; 2nd ed., 1817); Anweisung zum Zeichnen (Berlin, 1799); Anweisung zur Construction von Faschinenwerken (Berlin, 1799); Handbuch der Mechanik fester Körper und Hydraulik (Berlin, 1801; 3rd ed., Leipzig, 1842); Handbuch der Statik fester Körper, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1808; 2nd ed., 1832); Handbuch der Perspektive, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1810); Grundlehren der höheren Analysis, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1824); Handbuch der Hydrostatik (Berlin, 1826); and Anweisung zur Lösung höherer numerischer Gleichungen (Berlin, 1837).

II Secondary Literature. Biographical sketches may be found in C. von Hoyer, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie XLVIII (1904), 462; Löbe, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie VI(1877), 464; C. Matschoss, Männer der Technik (Düssesdorf, 1925), p. 69; M. Rühlmann, Vorträge über Geschichte der technischen Mechanik (Berlin, 1885), pp. 284–286; R. Schröder, Neue deutsche Biographie, IV (1959), 714; and S. Timoshenko, History of Strength of Materials (New York, 1953), p. 101. For a list of his work see Poggendorff, I, 708.

R. S. Hartenberg