Maximilian Joseph Johannes Eduard Schuler (5 February 1882 in

Zweibrücken Zweibrücken (; ; , ; literally translated as "Two Bridges") is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach (Blies), Schwarzbach River. Name The name ''Zweibrücken'' means 'two bridges'; older forms of the name include Middl ...

– 30 July 1972) was a German

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and is best known for discovering the principle known as

Schuler tuning Schuler, also Schüler, Shuler, and Shuhler, is a surname. The German language, German word ''Schüler'' directly translates to the English word ''scholar'' and has the meaning "pupil" in German. Notable people with the surname include: * Adon Shule ...

which is fundamental to the operation of a

gyrocompass A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical Direction (geometry), direction automaticall ...

inertial guidance system An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning ...

that will be operated near the surface of the Earth. Schuler's cousin

Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe Hermann Franz Joseph Hubertus Maria Anschütz-Kaempfe (3 October 1872 – 6 May 1931) was a German art historian and inventor. He was born in Zweibrücken and died in Munich. In his quest to navigate to the North Pole by submarine, he becam ...

founded a firm near

Kiel Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...

, Germany, to manufacture navigational devices using

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...

s in 1905, and Schuler joined the firm in 1906. For many years they struggled with the problem of maintaining a vertical reference as a craft moved around on the surface of the Earth. In 1923 Schuler published his discovery that if the gyrocompass was tuned to have an 84.4 minute period of oscillation (the ''Schuler period'') then it would resist errors due to sideways acceleration of the ship or aircraft in which it was installed. Later, Schuler served as a professor of dynamics at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

. According to the

Mathematics Genealogy Project The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians.. it contained information on 300,152 mathematical scientists who contributed to research-level mathematics. For a typical mathematicia ...

he supervised one dissertation there, that of

Kurt Magnus Kurt Magnus (September 8, 1912 - December 12, 2003) was a German scientist, expert in the field of applied mechanics, a pioneer of mechatronics, modern navigation technology and inertial sensors.Ludwig Prandtl Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 – 15 August 1953) was a German Fluid mechanics, fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlyin ...

References

1882 births 1972 deaths Engineers from Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Munich alumni People from Zweibrücken {{Germany-engineer-stub