Daniel Huber

Daniel Huber (23 June 1768 to 3 December 1829) was a Swiss mathematician and astronomer, born and died in Basel. He worked at the University of Basel, became its chancellor in 1804 and is noted for establishing one of the earliest continuous instrumental meteorological series in Switzerland. He came from a distinguished academic family in Basel, as his father was an astronomer and his brother a historian and pastor. He studied classical philology and medicine at the university before his appointment in 1792 as professor of mathematics there, and in 1802 he was named director of the university library. His research covered observational astronomy, including studies of comets, and problems in optics, and from 1815 he took part in the trigonometric surveys of Basel, which helped lay the groundwork for a national meteorological network.