Adam Prażmowski (astronomer)

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Adam Prażmowski

Adam Józef Ignacy Prażmowski (born March 15, 1821 in Warsaw , † February 5, 1885 in Paris ) was the first Polish astrophysicist and most important Polish astronomer of the 19th century. After his emigration he manufactured precision optical instruments in Paris.

Life

Warsaw

Adam Prażmowski comes from a Polish magnate family . He was born in Warsaw as the son of the appellate judge Józef Prażmowski and his wife Teresa Gaszyńska. His uncle Adam Michał Prażmowski was Bishop of Płock . Prażmowski was taught in his father's house and from 1837, after taking the final exams of the then eight-year high school, attended the two-year so-called additional courses under the direction of former scholars from the Royal Warsaw University , which was closed after the November uprising in 1831 . From 1839 Prażmowski worked as a second assistant at the Warsaw Astronomical Observatory , whose director was Franciszek Armiński . At first he was responsible for observing the weather . During this time Prażmowski wrote numerous articles for the monthly magazine Biblioteka Warszawska . Because of the poor financial resources of the observatory, he began to run a workshop for the repair and manufacture of scientific instruments in his private apartment. During this time he was already calculating lens systems and making barometers , thermometers and hydrometers . Following the example of Léon Foucault , he installed a pendulum in the observatory to demonstrate the rotation of the earth .

From 1846 to 1849 he participated in the geodetic surveying of Poland under the direction of the Russian geodesist Carl Tenner (1783-1859). Prażmowski determined the nodes of the trigonometric network and was a member of the commission that made the connection with the networks of the neighboring states of Prussia and Austria . After Armiński's death in 1849, he was appointed first assistant at the Warsaw Observatory. The professional world first became aware of the young astronomer in 1851. The calculation of the total solar eclipse of 1851 was made by Johann Heinrich von Mädler , director of the observatory in Dorpat (today Tartu ). Since Prażmowski mistrusted the Berlin ephemeris used by Mädler, he himself determined the central line of the solar eclipse using the English ephemeris and found a deviation of several kilometers, which was later confirmed by the director of the Greenwich Observatory George Biddell Airy . Prażmowski finally led the expedition to Wysokie Mazowieckie , the central observation station of the solar eclipse of July 28, 1851. The following year he was invited to the Pulkowo Observatory in St. Petersburg , whose director Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve him with the lead of the survey of the southernmost Section of the Struve Arch in Bessarabia . On a trip to Paris in 1856, Urbain Le Verrier , director of the observatory there , offered Prażmowski a managerial position, which he refused because he did not want to leave Poland at the time.

On July 18, 1860, Prażmowski observed another total solar eclipse in Briviesca in the province of Burgos in Spain . He discovered the radial polarization of the light of the corona , which proved that the corona, unlike the protuberances, only reflects the light. This also made it possible to decide in favor of the sun whether the corona observed during total solar eclipses should be assigned to the sun or the moon. As early as 1858, while observing comet Donati, he discovered that the light from a comet's tail is also polarized.

From November 1, 1860, Prażmowski taught physics at the Akademia Medyko-Chirurgiczna (Medical and Surgical Academy), the first Warsaw university after the university closed in 1831. Two years later, he became an adjunct at the Faculty of Physics and Geodesy of Szkoła Główna .

Paris

Adam Prażmowski's grave in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris

In the summer of 1863 he began a study visit to Paris. His request to extend his stay was rejected and Prażmowski was released on April 1, 1864. Although the rector of the Szkoła Główna, Józef Mianowski , intervened again in his favor because he did not want to lose such a capable employee, Prażmowski stayed in Paris. In 1864 he started working as an assistant in the optical workshop of Edmund Hartnack , who in 1865 appointed him mechanical director of the company. When Hartnack had to leave Paris in 1870 due to the Franco-Prussian War , Prażmowski continued to run the business. In 1878 Hartnack sold him the Paris workshop. On January 25, 1879, Prażmowski received French citizenship.

Prażmowski, who had already gained experience with the repair and construction of optical instruments at the astronomical observatory in Warsaw, developed into a leading optician in Paris . He improved many instruments such as the Nicol prism , the saccharimeter and the coelostat as well as water immersion objectives for microscopes . Hartnack and Prażmowski received medals at the world exhibitions in Paris in 1867 and 1878 and in Vienna in 1873 . After Prażmowski's death, his masters Bézu and Hausser took over the workshop in 1885 and sold it in 1896 to Jean Alfred Nachet (1831–1908).

Prażmowski was in 1870 a founding member of the Society of Exact Sciences in Paris ( Towarzystwo Nauk Ścisłych w Paryżu ), an association of Polish scientists in exile in Paris . From 1880 to 1882 he was its president. From 1874 to 1882 he edited the company's magazine, the Pamiętniki Towarzystwa Nauk Ścisłych w Paryżu .

Fonts

  • Report on the Directeur de l'Observatoire central sur les travaux de l'expedition de Bessarabie, entreprise en 1852 . In: Bull. De l'Academie 1853
  • Observation de l'éclipse total de soleil du 18 juillet 1860 . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 51, 1860, pp. 195-197
  • Remarques relative to une communication récente du P. Secchi, sur le specter de la comète de Brorsen . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 66, 1868, pp. 1109-1111
  • Modification du saccharimètre optique . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 76, 1873, pp. 1212-1214
  • Helioscope . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 79, 1874, pp. 33-35
  • Sur l'achromatisme chimique . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 79, 1874, pp. 107-111
  • De la constitution des comètes . In: Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Fr. 93, 1881, pp. 262-263

with E. Hartnack:

  • Prisme polarizer . In: Ann. Chim. 7, 1866, pp. 181-189
  • Polarizing prism . In: Ann. Phys. , 203, 1866, pp. 494-496.

literature

  • K. Jurkiewicz, Adam Prażmowski , Kłosy XL, 1027 (1885) 154-5
  • M. Kluza, From East to West; Adam Prażmowski (1821 - 1885) , Proceedings of the XXV. Scientific Instrument Symposium, Krakau 2006, pp. 39-42

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wł. Folkierski: Towarzystwo Nauk Ścisłych w Paryżu. Jego początki i rozwój (PDF; 5.0 MB). In: Prace matematyczno-fizyczne 6, 1895, pp. 151–176 (Polish)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Prażmowski, Adam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prażmowski, Adam Józef Ignacy (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 1885
Place of death Paris