Axel Wittmann

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Axel Dieter Wittmann (born July 28, 1943 in Hanover ) is a German astrophysicist .

Life

Axel Wittmann passed his Abitur at the Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Schule in Braunschweig in 1963, studied physics and astronomy in Göttingen from 1963 to 1968 and completed his dissertation in 1973 on the calculation and measurement of the Stokes parameters in solar Zeemann multiplets (supervisor: Egon-Horst Schröter). He then continued to work at the Göttingen University Observatory . and after moving to the Institute for Astrophysics at the University of Göttingen (IAG) in 2005, he retired in 2008. He is a member of the AG, the IAU and since the beginning of 2002 managing director of the Gauß-Gesellschaft e. V.

plant

Axel Wittmann has carried out numerous measurements of the diameter of the sun , the different rotations of the sun at different depths of the solar atmosphere and at different heliographic latitudes, the granulation of the sun's surface , as well as calculations of line profiles in stellar atmospheres with magnetic fields. From measurements of the intensity and the spectra of sunspots , he derived models for their magnetic fields. From historical observational data, he has shown that the period of the sunspot activity cycle of 11 years remained constant on average over the last 2000 years, but that the cycle itself varied greatly in its intensity. He analyzed and calculated the tidal deceleration of the earth's rotation and the change in the inclination of the ecliptic caused by gravitational disturbances over long periods of time. His fields of work also include the calculation of ephemeris and star positions, as well as contributions to the computer control and data acquisition of solar telescopes, especially the GCT, GREGOR and CHROTEL telescopes at the Istituto per Ricerche Solari in Locarno / Switzerland (until 1981) and at the Observatorio del Teide / Tenerife (from 1987). His fields of work in retirement include the history of astronomy, especially in Göttingen, as well as the life and work of Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777–1855) and his work areas of astronomy, mathematics, geodesy and physics. Since 2002, Axel Wittmann has also been the publisher of the scientific history journal “Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft” ( ISSN  0435-1452 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Calculation and measurement of the Stokes parameters in solar Zeemann multiplets Göttingen 1973 Dissertation
  2. ^ AG membership directory
  3. ↑ Management Board of GAUSS-GESELLSCHAFT , accessed on September 28, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Wittmann, Axel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wittmann, Axel Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astrophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover , Germany