Martin Brendel
Otto Rudolf Martin Brendel (born August 12, 1862 in Niederschönhausen near Berlin ; † September 6, 1939 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German astronomer .
life and work
After graduating from high school in 1883, his subsequent studies in mathematics and astronomy took him to Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, Paris and London. In 1890 he received his doctorate. In the winter of 1891/92 he went on an expedition with Otto Baschin to Bossekop on the Altafjord ( Norway ) to carry out magnetic measurements and auroreal observations. Here at the 70th parallel they took the first known photographs of the northern lights on February 1st, 1892. After a stopover in Potsdam, he completed his habilitation in astronomy in Greifswald in 1892 and taught there as a private lecturer. In 1898 he became an associate professor for theoretical astronomy and geodesy in Göttingen. In 1907 he was appointed to the Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences in Frankfurt am Main to teach mathematics and insurance science.
In 1908 he was given the management of the observatory there by the Physical Society . When the University of Frankfurt opened in 1914, the Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences and all the institutes of the Physikalischer Verein where Brendel had previously worked became part of the university. Brendel received a professorship in astronomy and actuarial mathematics and became (or remained) director of the observatory and the insurance science seminar. He held this professorship until his retirement in 1927. He also headed the Planetary Institute founded in 1913. In addition, from 1920 to 1922 he also held a teaching position for insurance science at the University of Giessen . In Frankfurt he was a member of the Freemason Lodge Goethe and at times its master of the chair .
His main area of work was celestial mechanics , one of the most complex topics of all. He had specialized in determining the orbit of asteroids . In addition to theoretical astronomy, he also dealt with astronomical observations, in particular of asteroids, comets and double stars . He also constructed a rotating camera for the photometry of bright stars .
He developed the "Theory of the Small Planets" and published a corresponding four-part work between 1898 and 1911. In 1894, he received the Damoseau Prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences . In 1904 Brendel was appointed a member of the Leopoldina . The asteroid (761) Brendelia is named after him.
literature
- Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4
- Fritz Hinderer : Brendel, Martin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 584 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Martin Brendel in the catalog of the German National Library
- Publications by M. Brendel in the Astrophysics Data System
- K. Boda : Martin Brendel † Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 270 (1940), p. 248 (obituary)
Individual evidence
- ^ Asgeir Brekke, Truls Lynne Hansen: Nordlicht , series of publications of the Alta Museum No. 4, Alta 1997, ISBN 978-82-7784-017-8 , p. 29.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brendel, Martin |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Brendel, Otto Rudolf Martin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 12, 1862 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Niederschönhausen near Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 6, 1939 |
| Place of death | uncertain: Freiburg im Breisgau |