Gavriil Adrianowitsch Tichow

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Gavriil Adrianowitsch Tichow ( Russian Гавриил Адрианович Тихов * April 19 . Jul / 1. May  1875 greg. In Smolewitschi, Minsk province ; † 25. January 1960 in Alma-Ata ) was a Russian astronomer , astrophysicist and university teachers .

Life

Tichow's father was a railroad employee , so the family moved frequently. Tikhov's high school began in Pavlodar and ended in Simferopol . Even as a schoolboy he had to work as a tutor.

In the autumn of 1893 Tichow was accepted to study in the mathematics department of the physical- mathematical faculty of Moscow University (MGU). He visited the astronomical tower on the building of the optical company F. Schwabe on Moscow's Kuznetsky Most , in which the assistant of the Krasnopresnenskaya Observatory of the MGU Konstantin Dorimedontowitsch Pokrovsky gave introductory lectures. During holidays Tichow built in Smolewitschi a small observatory in which he is a telescope with a 51- millimeter - Lens Company Reinsfelder & Hertel set up. In the second course he was one of the students who were invited to the university observatory by Witold Karlowitsch Zeraski . In the summer of 1895 he became interested in botany and read among other things Kliment Arkadjewitsch Timirjasews Plant Life . In his third course he turned to astrophysics , in particular the spectra of binary stars . His teacher was Aristarch Apollonowitsch Belopolski . Belopolski translated Tichow's first scientific work into French and appeared in an Italian magazine.

When Tichow completed his studies in 1897, he was invited to prepare the young Lyudmila Evgrafovna Popova, who wanted to become a doctor , in the Smolensk Governorate for the final examination of a Russian boys' high school, because this was the prerequisite for studying medicine in Switzerland (women were allowed to attend Russian universities not studying). In April 1898 they married and first went to Paris , where Tichow studied at the University of Paris , while his wife began her medical studies at the University of Bern . At the same time Tichow worked 1898-1900 as an intern at the Paris observatory in Meudon with Jules Janssen . In November 1899 Tichow took part with French astrophysicists in a balloon flight of the aeronautical scientist Henry de La Vaulx to observe the Leonids . On his return to Moscow he received his master's degree and taught mathematics from 1902 at the 6th Moscow high school and from 1903 at the Montanhochschule In Yekaterinoslav .

Tikhov and his wife at the Pulkovo Observatory (1912)

In 1906 Tichow became an adjunct astronomer at the Pulkowo Observatory . Tichow's scientific work focused on the photometry and colorimetry of stars and planets as well as the optics of atmospheres . He studied the changes in the spectra of binary stars (1898) and variable stars (1908) to determine the light dispersion of the interstellar medium . Independently of Charles Nordman , he discovered the phase delay in the short-wave part of the spectra of the variable stars (Tichow-Nordman effect). Tichow was one of the first to use filter technology in astronomy. With the 30 inch telescope of the Pulkowo Observatory he took photographs of Mars in different spectral ranges during the Mars opposition in 1909 . He interpreted the different expansion and brightness of the polar ice caps on these images as an effect of the Martian atmosphere. Colorimetric studies of Saturn followed (1909, 1911). When the astronomical section of the Russian Society of Friends of Universe was formed, Tikhov became its chairman in 1912. Based on his investigations into the appearance of the earth on the moon, he was the first to determine in 1914 that the earth appeared in the universe as a blue planet. In 1915 he proposed a quick method for approximating the spectra of stars using a lens with strong chromatic aberration .

Tichow was an opponent of the idea that complex biological life only existed on earth ( rare earth hypothesis ). Based on his Mars investigations in 1909 and corresponding observations of Venus , he looked for evidence of the existence of plants on these planets. To this end, he carried out extensive studies of the reflectivity of plants under the most varied of climatic conditions. He suspected blue vegetation on Mars and yellow-orange vegetation on Venus. He considered his studies in the border area between astronomy and botany to be the beginning of a new science that he called astrobotany .

In 1917, when the February Revolution came, Tichow was drafted into the army and served in the Central Aeronautical Station of the Military School for Pilots and Observers near Kiev , where Pyotr Nikolayevich Nesterov also served.

After the October Revolution , Tichow taught astrophysics at the University of Petrograd and Leningrad from 1919 to 1931 . In addition, in 1919 he organized the astrophysical laboratory at the Lesgaft Institute in Petrograd and headed it until 1941. He continued his colorimetric studies, for example in 1922 on Uranus and Neptune . In 1927 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN-SSSR, since 1991 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN)). In 1930 he founded the Leningrad Aerophotometrie -Laboratorium the State Institute of Geodesy and Cartography in Moscow.

During the purge of the AN-SSSR with the relocation of the AN-SSSR from Leningrad to Moscow ( Academy affair ), Tikhov was arrested in 1930 and spent a few months in prison.

Tichow was one of the pioneers of the theory of the gravitational lensing effect . In 1937, independently of Albert Einstein, he developed a formula for the amplification effect of a gravitational lens for light sources with finite angular expansion . In 1937 and 1951 Tichow published color catalogs of 18,000 stars in selected areas by Jacobus C. Kapteyns . The Pulkowo Observatory planned an expedition to Alma-Ata to observe the total solar eclipse in July 1941. As a result of the German-Soviet war , the expedition became the evacuation of the observatory to Alma-Ata. Tichow arrived in Alma-Ata on August 21, 1941 and, together with Qanysch Sätbajew , Wassili Grigoryevich Fessenkow and others, founded the Institute for Astronomy and Physics in Alma-Ata in 1941 , which in 1950 became the Institute for Physics and the Institute for Astrophysics in 1946 founded Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR was divided. In 1947 the astronomical observatory in Kamenskoje Plato near Alma-Ata was added, in which in 1948 Tichow set up and then headed the independent department for astrobotany .

Wear Tichows names of the lunar craters Tikhov , the Mars crater Tikhov , the minor planet (2251) Tikhov and a road in Alma-Ata.

Honors, prizes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Суслов А. К .: Гавриил Адрианович Тихов (1875-1960) . Nauka , Leningrad 1980.
  2. ↑ a b c d Gavriil A. TIKHOV - 125 Anniversary on the birth (accessed February 5, 2019).
  3. ↑ a b Тихов Г. А .: Шестьдесят лет у телескопа . Государственное Издательство ДЕТСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ, Moscow 1959 ( [1] accessed on February 5, 2019).
  4. ↑ a b c Большая российская энциклопедия: ТИ́ХОВ Гавриил Адрианович (accessed February 5, 2019).
  5. ^ The literature of 1907 . In: Annual Astronomical Report. IX. Band . Georg Reimer, Berlin 1908 ( [2] accessed on February 5, 2019).
  6. ↑ L'homme qui a peint la Terre en bleu . In: Ciel et Espace . June 1, 2006, p. 48 .
  7. ↑ Тихов Г. А .: Астробиология . ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО ЦК ВЛКСМ "МОЛОДАЯ ГВАРДИЯ", Moscow 1953 ( [3] accessed on February 5, 2019).
  8. ^ GA Tichow: Life in space . Urania Verlag , Leipzig , Jena , Berlin 1961.
  9. ↑ RAN: Тихов Гавриил Адрианович (accessed February 5, 2019).
  10. ↑ Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Tikhov (Moon) (accessed February 5, 2019).
  11. ↑ Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Tikhov (Mars) (accessed February 5, 2019).


personal data
SURNAME Tichow, Gavriil Adrianowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Тихов, Гавриил Адрианович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian astronomer, astrophysicist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Smolevichi, Minsk Governorate
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 1960
Place of death Alma-ata