Early Readings on Geoid

The early discussions on geoid have history of over 150 years already. The discussions were dominated by German geodesist/mathematician pioneered by none other than Gauss, Listing and Helmert. The other main contributor was of course Gabriel Stokes whom was famous with Stokes formula for computing the geoid. Below are some early histories on geoid as adopted from NGS website.

1828: C.F. Gauss first describes the "mathematical figure of the Earth" (Heiskanen and Moritz, 1967, p. 49; Torge, 1991, p. 2; Gauss, 1828)

1849: G.G. Stokes derives the formula for computing the "surface of the Earth's original fluidity" from surface gravity measurements. This later became immortalized as "Stokes's integral" (Heiskanen and Moritz, 1967, p. 94; Stokes, 1849)

1873: J.F. Listing coins the term "geoid" to describe this mathematical surface (Torge, 1991, p. 2 ; Listing, 1873)

1880: F.R. Helmert presents the first full treatise on "Physical geodesy", including the problem of computing the shape of the geoid.

The early publications on the geoid are;
Gauss, C.F., 1828: Bestimmung des Breitenunterscchiedes zwischen den Sternwarten von Gottingen und Altona, Gottingen.
Helmert, F.R., 1880: Die mathematischen und physicalischen Theorien der hoheren Geodasie, Teubner, Leipzip, Frankfurt.
Listing, J.B., 1873: Uber unsere jetzige Kenntnis der Gestalt und Grosse der Erde, Nachr. d. Kgl., Gesellsch. d. Wiss. und der Georg-August-Univ., 33-98, Gottingen.
Stokes, G.G., 1849: On the variation of gravity at the surface of the Earth, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, V. 8, p. 672.

Johann Benedict Listing (1808-1882)

source - wiki

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