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Heinrich Wild

Heinrich Wild is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Heinrich Wild rather than just read about it. In short: Heinrich Wild (Mitlödi, Canton of Glarus, 15 November 1877 – Baden, Switzerland, 26 December 1951) was a Swiss businessman, industrial designer, and inventor who was the founder of Wild Heerbrugg, a Swiss optical instruments manufacturing company. Biography At 15 years of age, Wild became an apprentice with the engineer Legler in Glarus (hydraulic engineer for the Linth River).

Heinrich Wild — main illustration
Heinrich Wild — illustration

Key takeaways

  • Heinrich Wild belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect Heinrich Wild to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of Heinrich Wild from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Heinrich Wild (Mitlödi, Canton of Glarus, 15 November 1877 – Baden, Switzerland, 26 December 1951) was a Swiss businessman, industrial designer, and inventor who was the founder of Wild Heerbrugg, a Swiss optical instruments manufacturing company.

Biography

At 15 years of age, Wild became an apprentice with the engineer Legler in Glarus (hydraulic engineer for the Linth River). He bought a small theodolite, and after a short time independently made expanded measurements of the flow of the river Linth. Later Wild joined the Geometerschule (geometer school) at Winterthur and came in 1899 as a trainee to the Landestopographie (Swisstopo is a popular designation for the Swiss Federal Office of Topography) in Bern. Due to his bad experiences with the high mountain triangulation with a theodolite of conventional design, he tried in 1905 to design a new theodolite with rotable circle with coincidence circle-readings. In 1907 he left the Landestopographie and moved to Jena, Germany, where he joined the company Carl Zeiss to build up a new department for producing geodetic instruments. He began with the development of levelling instruments and designed later also a new theodolite, the Th I. In 1921 Wild returned to Switzerland and founded with Dr. R. Helbling, who run an office for land surveying, and with the politician Jacob Schmidheiny, the company Heinrich Wild, Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Optik (later known as Wild Heerbrugg, Wild-Leitz AG, Leica Geosystems, Leica Microsystems, Leica Camera). At this time he developed the first versions of the famous universal theodolite Wild T series and also the stereo autograph Wild A1 for aerial photo interpretation, besides a number of other measurement instruments. It may be perhaps typical for the inventors like Wild that he worried little about the financial condition of his company, and this ended finally with the consequence that Wild separated in 1932 from the company he founded, in order to be able to work as a freelance technical designer and inventor. He continued designing up until his death in 1951. Among his designs were the DK1, DKM1, DM2, DKM2, and DKM3, for Kern & Co, Aarau, besides other things. The ETH Zurich honoured him with the title Dr. honoris causa in 1930. His biography was published in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland as well as by the ETHZ.

References

External links Virtuelles Archiv von Wild Heerbrugg AG

Illustrations

Heinrich Wild: Heinrich and Lilly Wild (1900)
Heinrich and Lilly Wild (1900)
Heinrich Wild: Designs by H. Wild
Designs by H. Wild

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Heinrich Wild

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Heinrich Wild claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Heinrich Wild before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Heinrich Wild ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Heinrich Wild

In research
Heinrich Wild appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses Heinrich Wild in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
Heinrich Wild is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1877 births, 1951 deaths, 20th-century Swiss inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Heinrich Wild outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.
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How to study Heinrich Wild in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what Heinrich Wild means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain Heinrich Wild out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Heinrich Wild in simple terms?

Heinrich Wild (Mitlödi, Canton of Glarus, 15 November 1877 – Baden, Switzerland, 26 December 1951) was a Swiss businessman, industrial designer, and inventor who was the founder of Wild Heerbrugg, a Swiss optical instruments manufacturing company. Biography At 15 years of age, Wild became an appren…

Why does Heinrich Wild matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Heinrich Wild?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Heinrich Wild.

Tags

  • 1877 births
  • 1951 deaths
  • 20th-century Swiss inventors
  • Businesspeople in manufacturing
  • Leica Camera people
  • People from the canton of Glarus
  • Swiss chief executives
  • Swiss company founders
  • Swiss industrial designers

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