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Michael Meo of Oakland, California, and Kevin Krisciunas of Hilo, Hawaii, have kindly made available to me their unpublished translations of some sections of the latter.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.
Erscheinungsdatum: 06.10.2011

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nexusstc/Resolute and Undertaking Characters: The Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve/0d090084633668fd3d1ff4d40bc3e347.pdf

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Alan Henry Batten

Springer Science + Business Media BV

Springer London, Limited

Astrophysics and Space Science Library, A Series of Books on the Recent Developments of Space Science and of General Geophysics and Astrophysics Published in Connection with the Journal Space Science Reviews, Dordrecht, 1988

Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1988, 2011

Springer Nature, Dordrecht, 2012

Netherlands, Netherlands

lg1070171

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Wilhelm Struve founded a dynasty of astronomers that lasted into the fifth generation. This book follows the fortunes of the first three generations: Wilhelm himself was an outstanding astronomer and geodesist, famous for his pioneering observations of double stars - observations whose quality had not been surpassed until the development of modern methods of instrumental observational analysis. He is also well known as one of the three men who - almost simultaneously - succeeded in measuring the distance to one of the fixed stars. He founded the great observatory of Pulkovo, just outside modern Leningrad, and was succeeded as Director of the institution by his son Otto, who forms the subject of the second part of the book. Otto, too, was a famous observer of double stars and a great practitioner of the fundamental astronomy of the nineteenth century.

Front Matter....Pages i-xxv
Family Origins and Wilhelm’s Childhood....Pages 1-12
Student Days at Dorpat University....Pages 13-22
Astronomy at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century....Pages 23-29
Measuring the Earth....Pages 30-44
The Great Refractor....Pages 45-65
The Founding of Pulkovo....Pages 66-88
The Astronomical Capital of the World....Pages 89-112
Measuring the Sky....Pages 113-130
The Early Pulkovo Years....Pages 131-144
“Etudes d’Astronomie Stellaire”....Pages 145-155
Wilhelm’s Illness and Last Years....Pages 156-167
The Transition....Pages 168-180
The Companion of Procyon and the Transits of Venus....Pages 181-195
The 30-Inch Refractor....Pages 196-208
Mapping the Sky....Pages 209-218
Otto’s Retirement and Last Years....Pages 219-234
Epilogue the Family Tradition....Pages 235-244
Back Matter....Pages 245-259

2013-12-12