Person: Fiedler (2), Ernst

Ernst Fiedler was a German born Swiss school teacher.

Three years later Wilhelm Fiedler was appointed to fill the chair of descriptive geometry at the Polytechnic in Zürich, which had been vacant since Wolfgang von Deschwanden's death.
Ernst attended the Gymnasium in Zürich and, from 1879 onwards, the Polytechnic, where he studied mathematics at the Department for Mathematics and Physics Teachers.
Fiedler was influential in the school's development, especially after having become Director of the school in 1904, when it was re-organised and renamed as Oberrealschule.
Fiedler did not produce any mathematical research papers; he was very much a schoolteacher and not a research mathematician.
Early on Fiedler made a name for himself in the Swiss army, which he joined in 1881.
Fiedler was a member of the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Schulgesundheitspflege, a society taking charge of all aspects of health and hygiene in Swiss schools.
It is due to Fiedler that shorthand was introduced as an optional subject in secondary schools.
Following a nervous breakdown, Fiedler became heavily involved in the temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, educating the public on the dangers of alcohol abuse.
Fiedler is only mentioned once in the minutes of the committee of the first International Congress of Mathematicians: he attended the meeting on 08 December 1896.
Fiedler attended two further congresses, the 1908 ICM in Rome and the 1912 ICM in Cambridge, but did not give a talk at either.

Born 22 July 1861, Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany. Died 6 October 1954, Zurich, Switzerland.

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Origin Germany

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive