10 Facts About Sebastian Finsterwalder

Sebastian Finsterwalder was a German mathematician and glaciologist.

Sebastian Finsterwalder was born 4 October 1862 in Rosenheim, son of Johann Nepomuk Finsterwalder, a master baker from Antdorf near Weilheim, Upper Bavaria, and Anna Amman of Rosenheim.

Sebastian Finsterwalder observed that Rudolf Sturm's analysis of the "homography problem" can be used to solve the problem of 3D-reconstruction using point matches in two images; which is the mathematical foundation of photogrammetry.

Sebastian Finsterwalder was appointed professor at the Technical University of Munich in 1891, succeeding his teacher, A Voss, at the Department of Analytical Geometry, Differential and Integral Calculus.

Sebastian Finsterwalder applied the technique of plane table photogrammetry in addition to a conventional geodetic survey, assisted by the novel lightweight, accurate phototheodolite that he had developed for high-mountain applications.

From 1890 Sebastian Finsterwalder employed aerial photography, reconstituting the topography of the area of Gars am Inn in 1899 from a pair of balloon photographs using mathematical calculations of many points in the images.

In 1897 Sebastian Finsterwalder addressed the German Mathematical Society, and he described some of the results of projective geometry he was applying to photogrammetry.

Sebastian Finsterwalder worked with Martin Kutta at the Institute in Munich to devise formulas relating to the lift on an aerofoil in terms of the circulation round it.

Kutta's habilitation thesis, completed in the same year, 1902, with which Sebastian Finsterwalder assisted, contains the Kutta-Joukowski theorem giving the lift on an aerofoil.

In 1923 and 1924 Sebastian Finsterwalder measured a flow velocity profile across Olgruben rock glacier.