Felicjan Kępiński

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Felicjan Eugeniusz Piotr Kępiński (born April 29, 1885 in Piotrków Trybunalski , Poland , † April 8, 1966 in Warsaw ) was a Polish astronomer.

origin

Felicjan Kępiński's birthplace is on May 3rd Street in Piotrków Trybunalski in the Łódź Voivodeship ; here he was born as the son of Felicjan Konstanyn Kępiński and Anna Keral. The family was of Roman Catholic faith.

Education

In 1903 he finished his school years at the Piotrkówer Gymnasium with distinction and began studying at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Warsaw University of Technology ( Politechnika Warszawska ). During the general strike of September 11, 1905, political unrest broke out in Warsaw. Since the University of Warsaw was then closed, Felicjan Kępiński moved to continue his studies abroad, to Germany. Until 1906 he studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Leipzig , then at the Universities of Göttingen (1906–1909) and Berlin (1909–1912).

Professional background

In February 1913 he obtained the title of Doctor of Philosophy in Berlin with his inaugural dissertation “On the periodic solutions of planetoids close to Jupiter” (the natural sciences were then assigned to the Philosophical Faculties). Kępiński's scientific work was published in the journal Astronomical News in February 1913 . The content summarized Dr. Freundlich (Neubabelsberg) as follows:

“At the top of the investigation is the requirement: eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit e '≠ 0. Starting from this research, will

  1. demonstrated the impossibility of analytical solutions in the domain of Poincaré's periodic solutions for the type (p + 1) / p;
  2. extends the initial constellations that lead to periodic solutions;
  3. for the case (p + 2) / p periodic fluctuations of the elliptical elements within the period of Poincaré's solutions are discussed by short-period terms and calculated for the case 5/3. "

Kępiński's astronomical calculations made it possible, among other things, to locate the short-period comet 22P / Kopff again after it approached the planet Jupiter in 1954.

Felicjan Kępiński was married to Krystyna Giustiniani (1883-1970) since 1913. The couple had at least one son and daughter Ira (1911–1989). She became known in specialist circles as a mathematician under her married name Kożniewska.

Until the end of the First World War , Felicjan Kępiński worked as a scientific assistant at the Berlin-Babelsberg observatory in Neubabelsberg . After the end of the war he returned to Poland and held an assistant position at the Warsaw Polytechnic, where he began to deal with questions of geodesy . In 1925 he founded an astronomical observatory in Warsaw. In 1927 he was made an extraordinary professor and in 1938 a full professor of astronomy.

His son died during World War II ; he himself lost an eye in May 1943 during the German occupation of Warsaw. After the end of the war he took an active part in the reconstruction of the destroyed Technical University of Warsaw, especially in the field of practical astronomy and the construction of a library. From 1925 to 1955 he was director of the astronomical observatory he founded. The focus of his work lay in the areas of celestial mechanics and geodesy. Numerous specialist publications testify to his lively research activity.

Felicjan Kępiński died in Warsaw in 1966 and was buried in the Powązki cemetery (grave site 281-III-22).

In 1979 the International Astronomical Union named an impact crater on the back of the moon in his honor, namely the lunar crater Kępiński .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ For a copy of the dissertation, see: Astronomische Nachrichten , Volume 194, pp. 49-78 http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1913AN....194...49K/0000030.000.html .
  2. ↑ Summary of the dissertation see: zbMATH http://jfm.sub.uni-goettingen.de/?q=an:44.1075.02 .
  3. ↑ read: requirement
  4. ↑ 22P / Kopff on: Gary W. Kronk's Cometography .
  5. ^ Peter Abrahams, Historic Telescopes of Poland ( DOC ).
  6. ↑ Sylwetki Profesorów Politechniki Warszawskiej , Polish-speaking article about Felicjan Kępiński on: astrojawil.
  7. ↑ Grave of Prof. Dr. habil. Felicjan Kępiński, Warsaw , in: astrojawil.
personal data
SURNAME Kępiński, Felicjan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kępiński, Felicjan Eugeniusz Piotr (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Piotrków Trybunalski
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1966
Place of death Warsaw