Name Carl Barth | Role Mathematician | |
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Died 1939, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States | ||
Carl Georg Lange Barth (February 28, 1860 – October 28, 1939) was a Norwegian-American mathematician, mechanical and consulting engineer, and lecturer at Harvard University. Barth is known as one of the foreman of scientific management, who improved and popularized the industrial use of compound slide rules.
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Youth and education
Carl Georg Barth was born in Christiania, Norway. He was the fourth child of Jakob Boeckman Barth (1822-1892), a lawyer and Adelaide Magdeline Lange Barth (1828- 1897), daughter of a Danish clergyman. He received his early education in the public schools at Lillehammer.
He was a graduate from University at Christiania. He later attended the Royal Norwegian Navy technical school at Horten. In 1877, Barth started an apprenticeship in the navy yard at Karljohansvern in Horten.
Career
In 1899, efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor hired Barth to work with him at Bethlehem Steel Company. Carl Barth helped to develop speed-and-feed-calculating slide rules.
In 1902, Taylor and Barth went to work for William Sellers at the machine tool firm of William Sellers & Company of Philadelphia. An account of their application of slide rules was published in the Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1904.
Barth started in 1905 on his independent career as consulting engineer. Barth became an early consultant on scientific management and later taught at Harvard University. Barth edited articles submitted to International Correspondence School of Scranton, Pennsylvania publication, the Home Study Magazine. In 1909, he undertook the installation of scientific management in the Watertown Arsenal at Watertown, Massachusetts.
Barth was a leftist and anticapitalist.
Family
In March 1882, Barth was married to Henrike Jakobine Fredriksen. They were the parents of three children.