Maarten Hooijberg’s scientific contributions

The Transverse Mercator projection of the sphere was described by Lambert in 1772, and is occasionally known as the Lambert I projection (Lee, 1962).

A projection is a systematic representation of a portion of the earth’s curved surface upon a plane. The projections have been devised with a geodetical curvilinear lattice of latitude and longitude. The co-ordinate systems are based on projections and are determined by the orientation of a particular area of the earth’s curved surface. A grid is a system of co-ordinates on the earth’s surface expressed in linear units: X, Y or Eastings, Northings (Maling, 1992).

BASIC is a simple, easy-to-use computer programming language with English-like statements and mathematical notations.

Large-scale military maps use conformal projections. A rectangular grid is superimposed on military maps to assist in the location of points. This concept is similar to that of the GK- and LCC systems introduced in the previous sections.

For mapping an area of considerable extent in longitude, a geometrical system based on the notion of an east-west centre line can be used. Johann Heinrich Lambert devised and published such a projection in “Beiträge zum Gebrauche der Mathematik und deren Anwendung” in the year 1772. The Lambert projection remained almost unknown until the beginning of the World War I. The system was introduced and has been brought to conspicuous attention by the French Military Survey (“Le Service Géographique de l’Armée”) under the name “Quadrillage kilomètrique système Lambert” (Tardi, 1934).

Changing from one datum to another implies a mathematical operation with datum transformation formulae that fit the geoid as closely as possible. Thus, the geoidal heights will be small.

The oblique Mercator (OM) projection for which the basic formulae were originally developed by Brigadier M. Hotine is used where the area of interest is oblong, and the longer axis through the territory is skewed with respect to the meridians (Hotine, 1946–1947).

Clairaut, 1743: “Théorie de la figure de la terre tirée des Principles de l’hydrostatique”.The mathematical Figure of the Earth, a term which in modern usage is usually applied to the classical definition of the geoid, is defined as the equipotential (level) surface of the earth’s gravitational field. This surface, on average, coincides with mean sea level (MSL) in the open undisturbed ocean or its hypothetical extension under the land masses so as to encircle the earth (Bomford, 1977; Clarke, 1880; Fischer, 1845; Listing, 1873; Torge, 1991).