Martin Bartels as researcher: His contribution to analytical methods in geometry (Q1362794)

Martin Bartels (1769-1836) has been known as a tutor of young Gauss in Braunschweig and as a Professor of Lobachevsky at Kazan University. In this article, his activities as a successful geometer at Dorpat (now, Tartu, Estonia) is underlined. In particular, it is pointed out that Bartels introduced ``moving systems of axes'' in the theory of special curves which led to (his student's) Carl Eduard Senff's 1831 formulation of the so-called Frénet-Serret formulas seventeen years before the latter's publication.