STIELTJES

NETHERLANDS (see also List of Individuals)

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19.5.1819 Leuven/BE - 23.6.1878 Rotterdam/NL

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Thomas Joannes Stieltjes was the youngest of eleven children born in today's Belgium, then a part of the Dutch Empire. When the Belgian revolution broke out in 1830, Stieltjes moved back to Breda and joined the Dutch army, where he received an engineering education and later also the title of doctor. Stieltjes was an engineer director of the Overijsselsche Kanaalmaat- schappij from 1851 to 1859; he was the head of Zwolle City from 1858 to 1860, and then moved to the Dutch colony Java for the following fourteen years to head the Dutch Royal Institute of Engineers from 1865 to 1874 upon returning to Holland. In parallel he was chief engineer of Rotterdam city and there involved in improvements of the Maas River. In 1872, Rotterdam had a direct access to the Sea with a navigation Canal erected by Stieltjes, and from 1879, the city had also a modern harbor that was designed by its engineer. In Rotterdam, a monument was erected that commemorated the outstanding works of Stieltjes. His son Thomas Johannes became a famous mathematician.

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Stieltjes' 1855 book presents the main engineering works conducted on the Ijssel River, an important Dutch watercourse. This was the first project of the hydraulic engineer, relating to regulation schemes of water levels, to river navigation and to flood protection works. Other works followed in today's Indonesia and then in the 1860s his project to connect the North and the Baltic Sea, which was much later reconsidered in Germany. Given his technical and political impact, Stieltjes may be considered the prime Dutch hydraulic engineer in the 1870s.

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_{Diesen, G. van (1878). Levensberigt van Dr. T.J. Stieltjes. Jaarboek Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen: 21-60.}

_{Stieltjes, T.J. (1855). De Overijsselsche waterwegen uit een Nederlandsch oogpunt beschouwd.}

_{Willink: Zwolle.}

_{Stieltjes, T.J. (1863). Aanleg van spoorwegen en waterwegen op Java. Notulen Koninklijke Instituut van Ingenieurs (93).}

_{Stieltjes, T.J. (1866). Kanaal van Apeldoorn naar Dieren. Notulen Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (11). Stieltjes, T.J. (1866). Denkschrift über einen Kanal zur Verbindung der Nordund Ostsee. S'Hage. Stieltjes, T.J. (1877). Les constructions hydrauliqueshttp://bvn.xs4all.nl/varia.html . Steuerwuld: Rotterdam. http://bvn.xs4all.nl/varia.html P}