Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero

Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, 1st Marquis of Mulhacén, (April 14, 1825 - January 28 or 29, 1891) was a Spanish divisional general and geodesist.[1][2][3] He represented Spain at the 1875 Conference of the Metre Convention and was the first president of the International Committee for Weights and Measures.[4] As a forerunner geodesist and president of the International Geodetic Association,[5] he played a leading role in the worldwide dissemination of the metric system.[6] His activities resulted in the distribution of a platinum and iridium prototype of the metre to all States parties to the Metre Convention during the first meeting of the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1889.[4] These prototypes defined the metre right up until 1960.[7]

Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero
Portrait of Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero in 1881
BornApril 14, 1825
Barcelona (Spain)
DiedJanuary 28 or 29, 1891
Nice (France)
Resting placeCimetière du Château in Nice
NationalitySpanish
Known forPresident of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (1875-1891)
AwardsPoncelet Prize
Scientific career
FieldsGeodesy, Geography, Metrology.
InstitutionsGeographic and Statistical Institute of Spain (1870-1889)

He was born in Barcelona. According to Spanish tradition, his surname was a combination of his father's first surname, Martín Ibáñez y de Prado and of his mother's first surname, Carmen Ibáñez de Ibero y González del Río. As his parent's surnames were so similar he was often referred as Ibáñez or Ibáñez de Ibero or as Marquis of Mulhacén. When he died in Nice (France), he was still enrolled in the Engineer Corps of the Spanish Army. As he died around midnight, the date of his death is ambiguous, Spaniards retained 28th, and continental Europeans 29 January.[8][1][2]

Scientific career

From the Map Commission to the Geographic and Statistical Institute in Spain

Spain adopted the metric system in 1849. The Government was urged by the Royal Academy of Science to approve the creation of a large-scale map of Spain in 1852.[9] The following year Ibáñez was appointed to undertake this task.[4] All the scientific and technical material had to be created.[4] Ibáñez and Saavedra went to Paris to supervise the production by Jean Brunner of a measuring instrument calibrated against the metre which they had devised and which they later compared with Borda's double-toise N°1 which was the main reference for measuring all geodetic bases in France and whose length was 3.8980732 metres.[10][6][11][12]

In 1858 Spain's central geodetic base of triangulation was measured in Madridejos (Toledo) with exceptional precision for the time thanks to this instrument, which became known as the Spanish Standard (French: Règle espagnole).[13][11] Ibáñez and his colleagues wrote a monograph which was translated into French by Aimé Laussedat.[14] The experiment, in which the results of two methods were compared, ended a controversy between French and German geodesists about the length of geodesic triangulation bases, and empirically validated the method of General Johann Jacob Bayer, founder of the International Association of Geodesy.[15]

The Spanish Standard was replicated in order to be used in Egypt, France and Germany. These Standards were used for some of the most important European surveys.[16][17] In 1863, Ibáñez and Ismael Effendy compared the Spanish Standard with the Egyptian Standard in Madrid.[18][19][20]

From 1865 to 1868 Ibáñez added the survey of the Balearic Islands with that of the Iberian Peninsula.[13] For this work, he devised a new instrument, which allowed much faster measurements.[13] In 1869, Ibáñez brought it along to Southampton where Alexander Ross Clarke was making the necessary measurements to compare the Standards of length used in the World.[4][11][21] Finally, this second version of the appliance, called the Ibáñez apparatus, was used in Switzerland to measure the geodetic bases of Aarberg, Weinfelden and Bellinzona.[4][22]

In 1870 Ibáñez founded the Spanish National Geographic Institute which he then directed until 1889.[23] At the time it was the world's biggest geographic institute.[4] It encompassed geodesy, general topography, leveling, cartography, statistics and the general service of weights and measures.[4]

Measurement of the Paris meridian over the Mediterranean Sea
The West Europe-Africa Meridian-arc extending from the Shetland Islands, through Great Britain, France and Spain to El Aghuat in Algeria, whose parameters were calculated from surveys carried out in the mid to late 19th century. Greenwich meridian is depicted rather than Paris meridian.[24]

Copies of the Spanish standard were made for France and Germany. These standards would be used for the most important operations of European geodesy.[16] Indeed, Louis Puissant had declared in 1836 to the French Academy of Sciences that Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre Méchain had committed an error in the measurement of the Paris meridian arc used for the determination of the metre.[25] This was the reason for Antoine Yvon Villarceau checked the geodetic operations at eight points of the meridian arc. Some of the errors in the operations of Delambre and Méchain were then corrected. From 1870 to 1894, François Perrier, then Jean-Antonin-Léon Bassot proceeded to a new measurement of the French meridian arc.[26]

In 1865 the triangulation of Spain was connected with that of Portugal and France.[14][20] In 1866 at the conference of the Association of Geodesy in Neuchâtel, Ibáñez announced that Spain would collaborate in measuring the Paris meridian.[4][27] In 1879 Ibáñez and François Perrier (representing France) completed the junction between the geodetic network of Spain and Algeria and thus completed the measurement of the Paris meridian which extended from Shetland to the Sahara.[28] This connection was a remarkable enterprise where triangles with a maximum length of 270 km were observed from mountain stations (Mulhacén, Tetica, Filahoussen, M'Sabiha) over the Mediterranean Sea.[29][28][30] The Paris meridian arc was renamed West Europe-Africa Meridian-arc by Alexander Ross Clarke and Friedrich Robert Helmert. It yielded a value for the equatorial radius of the earth a = 6 377 935 metres, the ellipticity being assumed as 1/299.15. The radius of curvature of this arc is not uniform, being, in the mean, about 600 metres greater in the northern than in the southern part.[24]

International scientific collaboration in geodesy and calls for an international standard unit of length
Closeup of National Prototype Meter Bar No. 27, made in 1889 by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and given to the United States, which served as the standard for defining all units of length in the US from 1893 to 1960. After the Treaty of the Meter had been signed in 1875, the BIPM in Sèvres, France made 30 prototype standard bars of 90% platinum–10% iridium alloy. One of the bars was selected as the International Meter. After selecting the bar to be used as the International Prototype Meter, the other bars were calibrated relative to it and given to nations to serve as their national standards. The main problem with defining the length standard by an artifact such as the meter bar is that there is no sure way to determine if it has changed length due to age, deterioration, or misuse. It can be compared to other bar standards, but these may have changed length themselves.

In 1866 Spain, represented by Ibáñez, joined the Central European Arc Measurement (German: Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung) at the Permanent Commission meeting in Neuchâtel.[31][27] In 1867 at the second General Conference of the Central European Arc Measurement (see International Association of Geodesy) held in Berlin, the question of an international standard unit of length was discussed in order to combine the measurements made in different countries to determine the size and shape of the Earth.[32][33][34][4] The Conference recommended the adoption of the metre and the creation of an international metre commission,[31] according to a preliminary discussion between Johann Jacob Baeyer, Adolphe Hirsch and Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero.[4] The French Academy of Sciences and the Bureau des Longitudes in Paris drew the attention of the French government to this issue. The Academy of St Petersburg and the English Standards Commission were in agreement with the recommendation.[32][35]

In November 1869 the French government issued invitations to join this commission.[32] Spain accepted and Ibáñez took part in the Committee of preparatory research from the first meeting of the International Metre Commission in 1870.[36] He was elected president of the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission in 1872.[37][38] He represented Spain at the 1875 conference of the Metre Convention and at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1889.[4][39][40] At the first meeting of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, he was elected Chairman of the Committee, a position he held from 1875 to 1891.[41][4] He received the Légion d'Honneur in recognition of his efforts to disseminate the metric system among all nations and was awarded the Poncelet Prize for his scientific contribution to metrology.[37][6][42]

President of the Permanent Commission of the European Arc Measurement from 1874 to 1886, Ibáñez became the first president of the International Geodetic Association (1887-1891) after the death of Johann Jacob Baeyer.[6][5]

As Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero stated, the International prototype metre would form the basis of the new international system of units, but it would no longer have any relation to the dimensions of the Earth that geodesists were trying to determine. It would be no more than the material representation of the unity of the system.[43]

More over, the progresses of metrology combined with those of gravimetry through improvement of Kater's pendulum led to a new era of geodesy. If precision metrology had needed the help of geodesy, it could not continue to prosper without the help of metrology. Indeed, how to express all the measurements of terrestrial arcs as a function of a single unit, and all the determinations of the force of gravity with the pendulum, if metrology had not created a common unit, adopted and respected by all civilized nations, and if in addition one had not compared, with great precision, to the same unit all the rulers for measuring geodesic bases, and all the pendulum rods that had hitherto been used or would be used in the future? Only when this series of metrological comparisons would be finished with a probable error of a thousandth of a millimeter would geodesy be able to link the works of the different nations with one another, and then proclaim the result of the measurement of the Globe.[43]

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See also

References
  1. "Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales - Académicos - Excmo. Sr. D. CARLOS IBÁÑEZ E IBÁÑEZ DE IBERO". www.rac.es. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  2. "CARLOS IBANEZ DE IBERO, MARQUIS DE MULHACEN". www.academieroyale.be (in French). Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  3. "Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero | Real Academia de la Historia". dbe.rah.es. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  4. Hirsch, Adolphe (1891). "Don Carlos IBANEZ (1825 - 1891)" (PDF). Bureau International des Poids et Mesures. pp. 9, 4, 8, 5, 10, 7, 8–9, 9. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  5. Drewes, Hermann; Kuglitsch, Franz; Adám, József; Rózsa, Szabolcs (2016-10-01). "The Geodesist's Handbook 2016". Journal of Geodesy. 90 (10): 907–1205, Table 3 p. 914. Bibcode:2016JGeod..90..907D. doi:10.1007/s00190-016-0948-z. ISSN 1432-1394.
  6. Soler, T. (1997-02-01). "A profile of General Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero: first president of the International Geodetic Association". Journal of Geodesy. 71 (3): 176–188 pp. 178, 183. Bibcode:1997JGeod..71..176S. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.492.3967. doi:10.1007/s001900050086. ISSN 0949-7714.
  7. "BIPM - former Prototype Metre". www.bipm.org. Retrieved 2017-05-22.
  8. "Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero". Wikipédia (in French). 2017-05-19.
  9. Núñez de las Cuevas, Rodolfo (2005). "Militares y marinos en la Real Sociedad Geográfica" (PDF). Universidad de Navarra. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  10. Brunner, Jean (1857-01-26). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Géodésie. - Appareil construit pour les opérations au moyen desquelles on prolongera dans toute l'étendue de l'Espagne le réseau trigonométrique qui couvre la France. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. pp. 150–152.
  11. Clarke, A. R.; James, Henry (1873-01-01). "Results of the Comparisons of the Standards of Length of England, Austria, Spain, United States, Cape of Good Hope, and of a Second Russian Standard, Made at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 163: 445–469, p. 16. doi:10.1098/rstl.1873.0014. ISSN 0261-0523.
  12. Ibáñez e Ibáñe de Ibero, Carlos; Saavedra Menesès, Carlos (1860). Expériences faites avec l'appareil à mesurer les bases appartenant à la commission de la carte d'Espagne /: ouvrage publié par ordre de la reine (in French). Translated by Laussedat, Aimé. J. Dumaine.
  13. J. Bertrand, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (1891-01-01). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Notice sur le général Ibañez, correspondant de l'Académie. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. pp. 266–269.
  14. Laussedat, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (1866-01-01). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Géodésie. - Sur les travaux géodésiques exécutés en Espagne, à propos de la publication d'une traduction de l'ouvrage intitulé : Base centrale de la triangulation géodésique de l'Espagne. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. pp. 1007–1010.
  15. Laussedat, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (1864-01-01). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Géodésie. - Sur les opérations en cours d'exécution pour la carte d'Espagne, d'après les renseignements donnés à l'académie de Madrid par M. le colonel Ibañez. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. pp. 70–72.
  16. Guillaume, Ch-Ed (1906). "La mesure rapide des bases géodésiques". Journal de Physique Théorique et Appliquée (in French). 5 (1): 242–263. doi:10.1051/jphystap:019060050024200. ISSN 0368-3893.
  17. Guillaume, Charles-Édouard (1920). "Notice nécrologique de F. DA PAULA ARRILLAGA Y GARRO" (PDF). BIPM.
  18. texte, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (1864-07-01). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. p. 623.
  19. Ismaïl-Effendi-Moustapha (1864). Recherche des coefficients de dilatation et étalonnage de l'appareil à mesurer les bases géodésiques appartenant au gouvernement égyptien. Paris: V. Goupy.
  20. Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Íbero, Carlos (1865). Base centrale de la triangulation géodésique d'Espagne. Translated by Laussedat, Aimé. Madrid: impr. de M. Rivadeneyra. pp. Appendice N.° 9 p. CXCIII, Appendice N.° 11 p. CCLI.
  21. Clarke Alexander Ross; James Henry (1867-01-01). "X. Abstract of the results of the comparisons of the standards of length of England, France, Belgium, Prussia, Russia, India, Australia, made at the ordnance Survey Office, Southampton". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 157: 161–180. doi:10.1098/rstl.1867.0010.
  22. A. Hirsch et J. Dumur, Lausanne, Commission Géodésique Suisse, 1888, 116 p.
  23. Nacional, Instituto Geográfico. "Instituto Geográfico Nacional". Geoportal oficial del Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-12-11.
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  26. Lebon, Ernest (1846-1922) Auteur du texte (1899). Histoire abrégée de l'astronomie / par Ernest Lebon,... pp. 168–169.
  27. Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, Carlos (1866). "Exposé de l'état des Travaux géodésiques poursuivis en Espagne, communiqué a la Commission permanente de la Conférence internationale, par le Colonel Ibañez, membre de l'Académie Royale des sciences et délégué du Gouvernement espagnol. in General-Bericht über die mitteleuropäische Gradmessung für das Jahr 1865. :: Publications IASS". publications.iass-potsdam.de. pp. 56–58. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
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  29. Torge, Wolfgang (2015). "From a Regional Project to an International Organization: The "Baeyer-Helmert-Era" of the International Association of Geodesy 1862–1916". IAG 150 Years. International Association of Geodesy Symposia. 143. Springer, Cham. pp. 3–18. doi:10.1007/1345_2015_42. ISBN 978-3-319-24603-1.
  30. Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Íbero, Carlos; Perrier, François (1886). Jonction géodésique et astronomique de l'Algérie avec l'Espagne, exécutée en commun en 1879, par ordre des gouvernements d'Espagne et de France, sous la direction de M. le général Ibañez,... pour l'Espagne, M. le colonel Perrier,... pour la France. Paris: Impr. nationale.
  31. Bericht über die Verhandlungen der vom 30. September bis 7. October 1867 zu BERLIN abgehaltenen allgemeinen Conferenz der Europäischen Gradmessung (PDF). Berlin: Central-Bureau der Europäischen Gradmessung. 1868. pp. 14, 123–134.
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  35. Bigourdan, Guillaume (1901). Le système métrique des poids et mesures; son établissement et sa propagation graduelle, avec l'histoire des opérations qui ont servi à déterminer le mètre et le kilogramme. University of Ottawa. Paris : Gauthier-Villars. pp. 254–258, 269.
  36. Morin, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (1870-07-01). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels. Métrologie. - Notes sur la première session de la Commission internationale du mètre, tenue à Paris du 8 au 13 août 1870. Paris: Gauthier-Villars. pp. 381–383.
  37. Pérard, Albert (1957). "Carlos IBAÑEZ DE IBERO (14 avril 1825 - 29 janvier 1891), par Albert Pérard (inauguration d'un monument élevé à sa mémoire)" (PDF). Institut de France Académie des Sciences. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  38. Procès-verbaux: Commission Internationale du Mètre. Réunions générales de 1872 (in French). Imprim. Nation. 1872. p. 155.
  39. [S.N.] (1875). ETH-Bibliothek / Documents diplomatiques de la conférence du mètre. Imprimerie Nationale. pp. [16] 8. doi:10.3931/e-rara-75532.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  40. "Compte rendu des séances de la première conférence générale des poids et mesures, réunie à Paris en 1889" (PDF). Bureau International des Poids et Mesures. 1890. p. 5. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  41. "BIPM - Presidents of the CIPM". www.bipm.org. Retrieved 2017-05-22.
  42. texte, Académie des sciences (France) Auteur du (July–December 1890). "Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences / publiés... par MM. les secrétaires perpétuels". Gallica (in French). p. 1025. Retrieved 2020-06-22.
  43. Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, Carlos (1881). Discursos leidos ante la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas Fisicas y Naturales en la recepcion pública de Don Joaquin Barraquer y Rovira (PDF). 1881: Imprenta de la Viuda e Hijo de D.E. Aguado. pp. 70, 78.CS1 maint: location (link)
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