Hermann Libert Westphalen

Hermann Libert Westphalen (born March 4, 1822 in Hamburg , † May 15, 1846 in Königsberg i. Pr. ) Was a German astronomer .

Life

Hermann Westphalen came from an old Hamburg merchant family and was born the fourth of five children of the Hamburg merchant Libert Westphalen (1785–1855) and Dorothea Charlotte Graeve (1787–1878). The senior secretary Nicolaus Adolf Westphalen (1793-1854) was his uncle and the fire director Adolph Libert Westphalen (1851-1916) his nephew.

After completing his education at the learned school of the Johanneum in Hamburg, Westphalen studied mathematics at the Philipps University of Marburg and in 1842 became an assistant and one of the favorite students of the scientist Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846) at the Königsberg observatory .

High hopes were placed in Westphalen, but he fell ill, suffered a hemorrhage and died in 1846 two months after his famous teacher.

Create

Bessel had considered the question of whether Newton's simple law of gravity was sufficient for a completely accurate calculation of the comet's orbits , and at his suggestion Westphalen treated the problem with special consideration of Halley's comet , which had appeared for the third time in 1835. Westphalen's investigation provided the proof that at least for the comet in question the simple formula of gravity represents all observations exactly, and that additional terms to this formula need not be considered.

literature

• Siegmund Günther :  Westphalen, Hermann Libert . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 227 f.

• Hermann Westphalen: About the orbit of Halley's Comet in the years 1835 and 1836 .
  • Astronomische Nachrichten , Vol. 24, Issue 23, pp. 333–348, Altona 1846 ( ADS , doi: 10.1002 / asna.18460242302 )
  • Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 24, Issue 25, pp. 365–378, Altona 1846 ( ADS , doi: 10.1002 / asna.18460242502 )
  • Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 25, Issue 12, pp. 165–180, Altona 1847 ( ADS , doi: 10.1002 / asna.18470251202 )
  • Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 25, Issue 13, pp. 181–192, Altona 1847 ( ADS , doi as above)

• Johann Heinrich von Mädler : History of astronomy from the oldest to the most recent . Braunschweig 1873, p. 91, 131, 446 .
• Hildegard von Marchtaler: 10th Hamburg gender book (=  German gender book . Volume 128 ). Starke, Limburg an der Lahn 1962, ISBN 3-7980-0128-6 , p. 458 .