Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto StruveSpringer Science & Business Media, 2012 M12 6 - 259 pages My interest in the history of the Struve family is long-standing but lay dormant until 1972, when I found myself organizing a symposium of the International Astronomical Union in memory of the second Otto Struve. To satisfy my own curiosity, I investigated the precise relationships of the famous astronomers in the family and published an account of them, based mainly on secondary sources. The exercise made me a ware that there was no biography in English of the first and probably still the greatest astronomer in the clan - Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve. Wilhelm's son, the first Otto, wrote an account (in German) of his father's life, intended primarily for family and close friends and --though printed-- not generally available. Through the kindness of a family member I have a copy from which I have been able to work. The Soviet historian of science, Z. K. Sokolovskaya, wrote a biography in Russian, in 1964, to mark the centenary of Wilhelm's death. This had a limited edition, and my efforts to obtain a copy failed. Neither work has, in its entirety, been translated into English, although Michael Meo of Oakland, California, and Kevin Krisciunas of Hilo, Hawaii, have kindly made available to me their unpublished translations of some sections of the latter. In the of a complete copy, however, when I decided to attempt an English absence language biography, I thought it best to do so independently of Sokolovskaya's. |
Contents
Family Origins and Wilhelms Childhood | 1 |
Student Days at Dorpat University | 13 |
Astronomy at the Beginning of | 23 |
Nineteenth Century 2248 | 30 |
The Great Refractor | 45 |
The Founding of Pulkovo | 66 |
The Astronomical Capital of the World | 89 |
Measuring the Sky | 113 |
Wilhelms Illness and Last Years | 156 |
The Transition | 168 |
The Companion of Procyon and the Transits of Venus | 181 |
The 30Inch Refractor | 196 |
Mapping the Sky | 209 |
Ottos Retirement and Last Years | 219 |
The Family Tradition | 235 |
245 | |
Other editions - View all
Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve A.H. Batten Limited preview - 1988 |
Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve A.H. Batten No preview available - 2011 |
Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve A H Batten No preview available - 1988 |
Common terms and phrases
61 Cygni Academy Airy's Altona appears Arc du Méridien Argelander Astronomische Nachrichten August became Bessel bright Catalogus Novus Chapter Cleveland Abbe Cleveland Abbe Papers companion complete daughter death determination Director distance Döllen Dorpat Dorpat Observatory double stars early Emilie Encke English Erinnerung Etudes F.G.W. Struve father Fraunhofer G.B. Airy Gauss Georg German Gill Greenwich Hermann hope ibid instrument Jacob Struve John Herschel journey Karl Königsberg later Library of Congress Livland Ludwig magnitude mathematics measure Mensurae Micrometricae meridian Milky Nicholas Nyrén O.W. Struve objective observations Olbers orbit Otto Struve Otto wrote Otto's pairs parallax Paris perhaps permission photograph Piazzi position probably professor proper motion published Pulkovo Observatory Pulkowa refractor Repsold Royal Astronomical Society Russian Schumacher scientific Simon Newcomb Smyth solar St Petersburg stellar Struve family summer survey telescope transit Tsar University Wilhelm and Otto Wilhelm Struve