After gaining practical experience as an engineer during the construction of the
Ludwig South-North Railway, he became associate professor of geodesy at the
Königlich polytechnischen Schule in
Munich in 1846 and full professor in 1851. In 1846, Bauernfeind presented a new revision of the theory of bridge vaults, which remained authoritative for a long time. Five years later, he invented the prismatic cross (including the
Bauernfeind prism), a device that soon became a valuable tool for geodesists because of its accuracy. In 1856, his
Elemente der Vermessungskunde (Elements of Surveying) was published, which became the standard work of this young science for decades. In 1857, he undertook
barometric height measurements in the
Alps; this was the first time that the influence of the
thermal radiation of the earth's surface was clearly recognized. In 1864, he made a detailed study of
atmospheric refraction. In 1865, he became an associate member of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and in 1870 was accepted as a full member. In 1873, he was elected a member of the
German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. From 1868, he was the founding director of the
Polytechnischen Schule München, which would later become the
Technical University of Munich. There, he shaped
geodesy into a scientific discipline. After relinquishing the directorship in 1874, he held this post again from 1880 to 1889. == References ==