Fyodor Alexandrovich Bredichin

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Fyodor Bredichin, 1890s

Fyodor Alexandrovich Bredikhin (also Theodor Bredikhin , Russian Фёдор Александрович Бредихин , English transcription Fyodor Aleksandrovich Bredikhin * November 26 jul. / 8. December  1831 greg. In Mykolaiv , † May 1 jul. / 14. May  1904 greg. In Sankt Petersburg ) was a Russian astronomer.

biography

Bredichin came from an old Russian aristocratic house, attended the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa, and from 1851 studied natural sciences at Lomonossow University . From 1857 he conducted research at the Moscow observatory, received his doctorate in 1862 (candidate thesis, about comet tails) and habilitated in 1864 (Russian doctorate, about disturbances in the orbit of comets through planets). He was then a professor at Lomonosov University and, from 1873, director of the Moscow Observatory. From 1890 to 1894 he was director of the Pulkowo Observatory as the successor to Otto Wilhelm Struve . There he took care of the installation of apparatus for astrophotography. He gave up the position for health reasons and to devote himself to his theory of comets, but continued to live in Saint Petersburg. Financially independent by nature, he also worked through foundations and prizes in astronomy in Russia.

He dealt mainly with the observation of comets and their shape, meteors and meteor showers. Bredichin also carried out the first spectroscopic studies on stars in Russia. He observed the northern lights and took gravity measurements with pendulums. He had important students in Russia and also worked in popular science.

He was known at the time for his mechanical (later outdated) theory of cometary tails, which he also classified into three types. According to his theory, a repulsive force from the sun acted on the particles of the comet's tail.

The asteroid (786) Bredichina and a moon crater are named after him. On December 28, 1883 he became a member of the Leopoldina in the section for astronomy and astrophysics. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . From 1886 to 1890 he was president of the Moscow Society of Naturalists . In 1884 he became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1892 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Padua. He was a member of the Bureau des Longitudes in Paris (1894) and the Italian Society for Spectroscopy.

Fonts

  • On Comet Tails (Russian), Moscow 1862, reprint 1934 (candidate thesis)
  • Essays on Meteors (Russian), Moscow, Soviet Academy of Sciences 1954

Web links

literature

  • Oskar Backlund , Obituary in Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 165, 1904, p. 351, digitized
  • Yuri Balashov, entry in Thomas Hockey, Virginia Trimble, Thomas R. Williams (Ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Astronomers, Volume 1, Springer 2007, pp. 167f

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry of Fedor A. Bredichin at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on March 21, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Bredichin, Fyodor Alexandrovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bredichin, Theodor; Бредихин, Фёдор Александрович; Bredikhin, Fyodor Aleksandrovich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Mykolaiv
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1904
Place of death St. Petersburg