The New International Encyclopædia/Ritter, August

RIT'TER, August (1826—). A German civil engineer, born at Lüneburg, and educated at the Polytechnic Institute at Hanover, and at Göttingen. He was a practicing engineer for some time, in 1856 became teacher of mechanics and construction of machinery at Hanover, in the Polytechnic Institute, and in 1870 became professor in the School of Technology at Aix-la-Chapelle. He is best known as the author of Ritter's method of reckoning arches for bridges and roofs. He wrote Elementary Theory and Calculation of Iron Bridges and Roofs (German, 1863, 5th ed. 1894; Eng. by Sankey, 1879), Lehrbuch der technischen Mechanik (1864; 7th ed. 1896), Lehrbuch der Ingenieur-Mechanik (1874-76), and Lehrbuch der analytischen Mechanik (2d. ed. 1883).