Irene Fischer
Encyclopedia
Irene Kaminka Fischer was a mathematician, geodesist
, National Academy of Engineering
Member; Fellow International Geophysical Union, Inductee of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency Hall of Fame. Fischer became one of two internationally known women scientists in the field of geodesy during the golden age of the Mercury and Apollo moon missions. Her Mercury Datum, or Fischer Ellipsoid 1960 and 1968, as well as her work on the lunar parallax, were instrumental in conducting these missions.
Born and educated in Vienna, Austria, she studied descriptive
and projective geometry
at the Technical University of Vienna and mathematics at the University of Vienna. Her teachers Moritz Schlick
and Hans Hahn
were among the luminaries of the Vienna Circle
; and her fellow students included physicist Victor Weiskopf, sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld
, and social psychologist Marie Jahoda
. Her father, the Rabbi Armand/Aaron Kaminka, was head of the Maimonides Institute, and regularly led high holiday services at the famed Vienna Musikverein. He worked for the Alliance Israelite investigating pogroms in Eastern Europe and raised money in the U.S. and Western Europe to help victims.
In 1931 she married historian and geographer Eric Fischer, who helped introduce American, as distinct from British, history to Vienna. The Fischer family founded and ran the Vienna Kinderbewahranstallt, the first professional kindergarten and kindergarten teacher training school in Vienna, a place that also became a refuge for immigrants to Vienna from Eastern Europe.
In 1939, the Fischers, with their young daughter, Gay, fled Nazi Austria, traveling by rail to Italy, by boat to Palestine and in 1941 by boat around East Africa
and the Cape of Good Hope
to Boston where they lived with Eric Fischer's sister, mother, and brother in law, the physician Otto Ehrentheil and their two daughters. Looking for jobs, Irene Fischer first worked as a seamstress’ assistant, then she graded blue books for Wassily Leontief
at Harvard
and for Norbert Wiener
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT). She also worked on stereoscopic projective geometry trajectories for John Rule at MIT. She taught mathematics at Brown and Nichols Preparatory School
in Cambridge, and then at Sidwell Friends
in Washington, D.C.
After World War II, and after her son, Michael, born in 1946, had reached school age, she found a job at the then Army Map Service, now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
in Potomac, Md., working under John A. O’Keefe in the Geodesy Branch and rising through the ranks to become the chief. Her twenty-five year career at AMS, working on what became the World Geodetic System, produced over 120 scientific publications. On the side, she published a high school geometry textbook in 1965 one of her many endeavors as an educator. After retiring in 1975, she wrote a memoir of her scientific career that was first serialized in the ACSM Bulletin, [an official publication of five surveying and mapping professional organizations, 2004–06] covering the field of geodesy in the years 1951–1975, and discussing doing science in a man’s world in a government bureaucracy. It was published as a book in 2005.
At the very beginning of her career in mathematics and geodesy Geodesy
, Dr. Fischer had quickly taught herself the basics of geodetic tables, datums Datum (geodesy), transformations, gravity studies, astronomy, long lines, flare triangulation, and guided missile ballistics. Her updates to geodetic science helped determine the parallax of the moon. Irene Fischer was also intrigued by research into post glacial uplift, and her geoid studies went hand in hand with investigations of the lingering effects of the last ice age.
Dr. Fischer disagreed with the established figure for the oblateness of the earth (the fraction by which the polar axis is foreshortened by the equatorial radius), which had remained unchallenged since 1924. She was forbidden to use her updated figures in her own work because that result was in disagreement with the accepted literature. However, after the flight of the first satellites, she was vindicated by the data and observations from the instruments, and she was allowed to amend her previous works with her newly derived figures. In commenting on the lack of faith others put on her research, Dr. Fischer goodheartedly quipped that the satellites had not accepted the accepted literature, either.
A pioneer during a time when there were few women in surveying, in 1967, Dr. Fischer was the first Army Map Service employee, and only the third woman ever, to receive the Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Dr. Fischer was internationally known for her many publications and presentations on the size and shape of the earth, including the Department of Defense manual, “Latitude Functions Fischer 1960 Ellipsoid.”
Dr. Fischer wrote an autobiography (published 2005), entitled, “Geodesy? What’s That? My Personal Involvement in the Age-Old Quest for the Size and Shape of the Earth, With a Running Commentary on Life in a Government Research Office.” In addition, Dr. Fischer has written more than 120 other technical reports, articles and books in her fields of expertise, and many of her significant government reports are still classified today.
Winner of many Federal Government service awards, Fischer was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Karlsruhe, elected to the National Academy of Engineering
, elected Fellow of the International Geophysical Union, and inducted into the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Hall of Fame, and the Learning Center at the new campus of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency has been named in her honor.
She and her family were active for many years at Temple Israel in Silver Spring, Md., where she also taught an adult class in basic Hebrew, and was an active member of a forty year long chavura (discussion group). When she moved to Rockville, Md., she joined Congregation Beth Israel and endowed a Biblical archeology lecture series in her husband’s memory at the Rockville Jewish Community Center. In Israel, where many family members live, she and her husband endowed fellowships to a technical college. In 2001 she moved back to Brighton, Mass., three blocks from where she had first lived as an immigrant in 1941. In 2007 she celebrated her 100th birthday, and her children told the packed and rapt audience of her retirement community about her career. She is survived by her daughter Gay Fischer of Oberlin, Ohio, her son Michael M.J. Fischer
and daughter-in-law Susann L. Wilkinson of Somerville, Mass., and many nephews and nieces, the children and grandchildren of her two brothers in Israel, and of her husband’s sister in New England.
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
, National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
Member; Fellow International Geophysical Union, Inductee of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency Hall of Fame. Fischer became one of two internationally known women scientists in the field of geodesy during the golden age of the Mercury and Apollo moon missions. Her Mercury Datum, or Fischer Ellipsoid 1960 and 1968, as well as her work on the lunar parallax, were instrumental in conducting these missions.
Born and educated in Vienna, Austria, she studied descriptive
Descriptive geometry
Descriptive geometry is the branch of geometry which allows the representation of three-dimensional objects in two dimensions, by using a specific set of procedures. The resulting techniques are important for engineering, architecture, design and in art...
and projective geometry
Projective geometry
In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant under projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary geometry, projective geometry has a different setting, projective space, and a selective set of basic geometric concepts...
at the Technical University of Vienna and mathematics at the University of Vienna. Her teachers Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
and Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn was an Austrian mathematician who made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory.-Biography:...
were among the luminaries of the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...
; and her fellow students included physicist Victor Weiskopf, sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld
Paul Lazarsfeld
Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was one of the major figures in 20th-century American sociology. The founder of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research...
, and social psychologist Marie Jahoda
Marie Jahoda
Marie Jahoda was an Austrian- British social psychologist.-Biography:Jahoda was born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family, and like many other psychologists of her time, grew up in Austria where political oppression against socialists was rampant henceforward Dollfuß claimed power...
. Her father, the Rabbi Armand/Aaron Kaminka, was head of the Maimonides Institute, and regularly led high holiday services at the famed Vienna Musikverein. He worked for the Alliance Israelite investigating pogroms in Eastern Europe and raised money in the U.S. and Western Europe to help victims.
In 1931 she married historian and geographer Eric Fischer, who helped introduce American, as distinct from British, history to Vienna. The Fischer family founded and ran the Vienna Kinderbewahranstallt, the first professional kindergarten and kindergarten teacher training school in Vienna, a place that also became a refuge for immigrants to Vienna from Eastern Europe.
In 1939, the Fischers, with their young daughter, Gay, fled Nazi Austria, traveling by rail to Italy, by boat to Palestine and in 1941 by boat around East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
and the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
to Boston where they lived with Eric Fischer's sister, mother, and brother in law, the physician Otto Ehrentheil and their two daughters. Looking for jobs, Irene Fischer first worked as a seamstress’ assistant, then she graded blue books for Wassily Leontief
Wassily Leontief
Wassily Wassilyovich Leontief , was a Russian-American economist notable for his research on how changes in one economic sector may have an effect on other sectors. Leontief won the Nobel Committee's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973, and three of his doctoral students have also...
at Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and for Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT). She also worked on stereoscopic projective geometry trajectories for John Rule at MIT. She taught mathematics at Brown and Nichols Preparatory School
Buckingham Browne & Nichols
Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, often referred to as BB&N, is a private school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by the Charles River. The school educates students from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade. It was established by a merge of two independent schools, the Buckingham School founded...
in Cambridge, and then at Sidwell Friends
Sidwell Friends School
Sidwell Friends School is a Quaker private school located in Bethesda, Maryland and Washington, D.C., offering pre-kindergarten through secondary school classes. Founded in 1883 by Thomas Sidwell, its motto is "Eluceat omnibus lux" , alluding to the Quaker concept of inner light...
in Washington, D.C.
After World War II, and after her son, Michael, born in 1946, had reached school age, she found a job at the then Army Map Service, now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States with the primary mission of collecting, analyzing and distributing geospatial intelligence in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency ...
in Potomac, Md., working under John A. O’Keefe in the Geodesy Branch and rising through the ranks to become the chief. Her twenty-five year career at AMS, working on what became the World Geodetic System, produced over 120 scientific publications. On the side, she published a high school geometry textbook in 1965 one of her many endeavors as an educator. After retiring in 1975, she wrote a memoir of her scientific career that was first serialized in the ACSM Bulletin, [an official publication of five surveying and mapping professional organizations, 2004–06] covering the field of geodesy in the years 1951–1975, and discussing doing science in a man’s world in a government bureaucracy. It was published as a book in 2005.
At the very beginning of her career in mathematics and geodesy Geodesy
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
, Dr. Fischer had quickly taught herself the basics of geodetic tables, datums Datum (geodesy), transformations, gravity studies, astronomy, long lines, flare triangulation, and guided missile ballistics. Her updates to geodetic science helped determine the parallax of the moon. Irene Fischer was also intrigued by research into post glacial uplift, and her geoid studies went hand in hand with investigations of the lingering effects of the last ice age.
Dr. Fischer disagreed with the established figure for the oblateness of the earth (the fraction by which the polar axis is foreshortened by the equatorial radius), which had remained unchallenged since 1924. She was forbidden to use her updated figures in her own work because that result was in disagreement with the accepted literature. However, after the flight of the first satellites, she was vindicated by the data and observations from the instruments, and she was allowed to amend her previous works with her newly derived figures. In commenting on the lack of faith others put on her research, Dr. Fischer goodheartedly quipped that the satellites had not accepted the accepted literature, either.
A pioneer during a time when there were few women in surveying, in 1967, Dr. Fischer was the first Army Map Service employee, and only the third woman ever, to receive the Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Dr. Fischer was internationally known for her many publications and presentations on the size and shape of the earth, including the Department of Defense manual, “Latitude Functions Fischer 1960 Ellipsoid.”
Dr. Fischer wrote an autobiography (published 2005), entitled, “Geodesy? What’s That? My Personal Involvement in the Age-Old Quest for the Size and Shape of the Earth, With a Running Commentary on Life in a Government Research Office.” In addition, Dr. Fischer has written more than 120 other technical reports, articles and books in her fields of expertise, and many of her significant government reports are still classified today.
Winner of many Federal Government service awards, Fischer was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Karlsruhe, elected to the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, elected Fellow of the International Geophysical Union, and inducted into the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Hall of Fame, and the Learning Center at the new campus of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency has been named in her honor.
She and her family were active for many years at Temple Israel in Silver Spring, Md., where she also taught an adult class in basic Hebrew, and was an active member of a forty year long chavura (discussion group). When she moved to Rockville, Md., she joined Congregation Beth Israel and endowed a Biblical archeology lecture series in her husband’s memory at the Rockville Jewish Community Center. In Israel, where many family members live, she and her husband endowed fellowships to a technical college. In 2001 she moved back to Brighton, Mass., three blocks from where she had first lived as an immigrant in 1941. In 2007 she celebrated her 100th birthday, and her children told the packed and rapt audience of her retirement community about her career. She is survived by her daughter Gay Fischer of Oberlin, Ohio, her son Michael M.J. Fischer
Michael M.J. Fischer
Michael M. J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School.He has done...
and daughter-in-law Susann L. Wilkinson of Somerville, Mass., and many nephews and nieces, the children and grandchildren of her two brothers in Israel, and of her husband’s sister in New England.