John Hugh Seiradakis

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John Seiradakis (2014)

John Seiradakis ( Greek : Ιωάννης-Χιου Σειραδάκης; born March 5, 1948 in Chania , Crete , Greece ; † May 3, 2020 in Thessaloniki ) was a Greek astronomer and professor emeritus in the physics department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki . He was best known for his contributions to the understanding of pulsars, the galactic center, and archaeoastronomy . Since the early 2000s he has been heavily involved in deciphering the Antikythera Mechanism . He was a founding member of the Hellenic Astronomical Society, the European Astronomical Society and the International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA).

Personal life

John Seiradakis was born on March 5, 1948 in Chania , Crete , Greece , to Mercy Burdett Money-Coutts Seiradaki and Michael Seiradakis. He had a younger sister, Sophia Hester Seiradaki. He completed his primary school education and two years of high school in Chania. In 1966 his family moved to Athens to finish the final four classes of Vyronas high school . He was admitted to the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , from which he graduated in Physics in 1971 (class of 1970). He continued his postgraduate studies at Victoria University of Manchester , where he received his Masters in 1973 and a PhD in Radio Astronomy in 1975 .

He had two children, Elena, currently Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Oxford University , and Michael, a doctor in Germany.

He died of complications from cancer on May 3, 2020 in his home in Thessaloniki .

Career

John Seiradakis conducted his master's and doctoral projects under the supervision of Dr. John G. Davies through. His master's thesis was entitled "Highly sensitive pulsar search". His examiners for the master's thesis were Dr. Bryan Anderson and Prof. Antony Hewish . For his doctoral project entitled "Pulsar Survey at Low Latitude at 408 MHz" he designed and carried out a sensitive survey for pulsars in the galactic plane. This survey revealed 18 new radio pulsars, more than 20% of the then known population. The Rigorosum examiners of his doctoral thesis were Dr. Robin G. Conway and Prof. Bernard EJ Pagel. After completing his doctorate, Seiradakis moved to Germany as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) under the direction of Prof. Richard Wielebinski . At the MPIfR, he made contributions to the understanding of pulsar emission and helped develop the first generation of pulsar instrumentation for the 100 m Effelsberg radio telescope. During his career he returned to the MPIfR several times: in 1979 as a postdoctoral fellow, from 1982 to 1984 as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow and in 1991 as a visiting researcher on his research leave while working at the University of Thessaloniki.

In 1978 he began working as a scientist at the University of Hamburg . Together with Dr. W. Huchtmeier and other scientists carried out a comprehensive study of the neutral hydrogen distribution in nearby galaxies with the 100 m radio telescope in Effelsberg.

From 1982 to 1984 he worked as a scientist at the University of California at San Diego, where he continued his research on pulsar emission and interstellar scintillation.

In 1984 Seiradakis, together with colleagues AN Lasenby, F. Yusef-Zadeh, R. Wielebinski and U. Klein, carried out some of the first polarimetric observations of Sag A * at 10 GHz. This study found an expanded polarized radio source with (radiation lobes?) Originating from the Galactic Center.

In 1986 he entered the Faculty of Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and was promoted to professor in 1996. As a faculty member, he made contributions in a variety of areas including neutron stars (pulsars), neutral hydrogen modeling in nearby galaxies, the Galactic Center, torch stars, transient lunar phenomena, and archaeoastronomy. He has published more than 74 scientific articles in - (?) Journals and more than 80 articles in conference proceedings and special volumes as well as three university-level textbooks. He was a founding member of the Hellenic Astronomical Society (Hel.AS), where he served as secretary (1994–1998) and as president (1998–2002). He was a member (1986–1990) and chairman (2001–2005) of the Greek National Committee for Astronomy.

Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera Mechanism is a hand-operated analog computer that was discovered in 1900. The mechanism has been studied in depth for over a century. However, in the early 2000s, new efforts began to analyze these using more advanced imaging techniques, known as the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP). Prof. Seiradakis, together with Prof. Xenophon Moussas and Yannis Bitsakis, led the Greek participation in these efforts. In 2005 the AMRP was given permission to study the mechanism using novel tomography and imaging techniques. This new study led to groundbreaking discoveries regarding the design, function and origin of the mechanism. The results of the project were presented in a series of scientific papers and in a review article in " Nature " entitled "Our Current Knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism" by JH Seiradakis and MG Edmunds. They have also inspired a large number of popular science articles and documentaries. Prof. Seiradakis gave numerous lectures and presentations in which the new results were presented around the world, including Chicago Chicago (USA), Bonn (Germany), CERN (Switzerland). etc.

Education and Public Relations

Seiradakis and the greek delegation during the 2011 5th IOAA in Krákow, Poland

Through his teaching and public relations work, Seiradakis played a central role in the development of astronomy in Greece during the entire period of the Third Hellenic Republic. Dozens of his students have continued their postgraduate studies in astrophysics and subsequently held research positions at the faculty in Greece and abroad.

On the initiative of Prof. Seiradakis, the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union launched the International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2006, an international competition for schoolchildren, which is now part of the International Science Olympiads . Seiradakis represented Greece on the IOAA board until his death in 2020. Together with Prof. Loukas Zachilas, he also headed the Greek team from 2007 to 2017.

Selected publications

  • "Pulsar Associated with the Supernova Remnant IC 443" by Davies JG, Lyne AG and Seiradakis JH, Nature, Volume 240, Issue 5378, pp. 229-230 (1972)
  • "Direct observation of pulsar microstructure" by Ferguson DC, Graham DA, Jones BB, Seiradakis, JJ and Wielebinski, R., Nature, Volume 260, Issue 5546, pp. 25-27 (1976)
  • "A new symmetrical polarization structure near the galactic center" by Seiradakis, JJ Lasenby, AN, Yusef-Zadeh, F., Wielebinski RJ and Klein, U., Nature, Volume 317, Issue 6039, pp. 697-699 (1985)
  • "Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism" by Freeth, T., Bitsakis, Y., Moussas, X., Seiradakis, JH et al., Nature, Volume 444, Issue 7119, pp. 587-591 (2006)
  • "Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism" by John Hugh Seiradakis and MG Edmunds, Nature Astronomy, Volume 2, p. 35-42 (2018)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Hugh Seiradakis, MG Edmunds: Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism . In: Nature Astronomy . tape 2 , no. 1 , January 2018, ISSN  2397-3366 , p. 35-42 , doi : 10.1038 / s41550-017-0347-2 (English).
  2. ↑ T. Freeth, Y. Bitsakis, X. Moussas, John Hugh Seiradakis, A. Tselikas, H. Mangou, M. Zafeiropoulou, R. Hadland, D. Bate, A. Ramsey, M. Allen: Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism . In: Nature . tape 444 , no. 7119 , November 2006, ISSN  1476-4687 , p. 587-591 , doi : 10.1038 / nature05357 .
  3. ↑ Associate Prof Elena Seiradake. In: www.bioch.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Γιάννης Σειραδάκης: Πέθανε ο σπουδαίος αστροφυσικός. In: CNN.gr. Newsroom, May 3, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 (Greek).
  5. ↑ Έφυγε από τη ζωή ο καθηγητής Αστροφυσικής του ΑΠΘ Γιάννης Σειραδάκης | Kathimerini. In: www.kathimerini.gr. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Πέθανε ο διακεκριμένος καθηγητής Αστροφυσικής Γιάννης Σειραδάκης. In: in.gr. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Astronomy Tree - John Hugh Seiradakis. In: academictree.org. Retrieved May 4, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Univ. of Manchester MSc Thesis, "High sensitivity pulsar search." 1973, accessed July 12, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Univ. of Manchester PhD Thesis, "Low latitude pulsar survey at 408 MHz." 1975, accessed July 12, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Astronomy Tree - John Hugh Seiradakis. In: academictree.org. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Prof. Dr. Richard Wielebinski | Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. In: www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  12. ^ Dale C. Ferguson, David A. Graham, Bevan B. Jones, Richard Jones, John Hugh Seiradakis, and John H. Wielebinski: Direct observation of pulsar microstructure . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature . tape 260 , no. 5546 , 1976, ISSN  0028-0836 , pp. 25-27 , doi : 10.1038 / 260025a0 .
  13. ^ Humboldt Foundation. In: www.humboldt-foundation.de. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Personal Website of John Seiradakis. In: www.astro.auth.gr. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  15. ↑ WK Huchtmeier, John Hugh Seiradakis, J. Materne: late-type galaxies with extended envelopes of neutral hydrogen . In: Astronomy and Astrophysics . tape 91 , no. 2 , November 1980, p. 341–351 ( online [accessed July 12, 2020]).
  16. ↑ WK Huchtmeier, John Hugh Seiradakis, J. Materne: The neutral hydrogen distribution of irregular galaxies . In: Astronomy and Astrophysics . tape 102 , no. 1 , September 1981, pp. 134–141 ( online [accessed July 12, 2020]).
  17. ↑ WK Huchtmeier, John Hugh Seiradakis: HI observations of galaxies in nearby groups . In: Astronomy and Astrophysics . tape 143 , no. 1 , February 1985, p. 216–225 ( online [accessed July 12, 2020]).
  18. ↑ a b John Hugh Seiradakis TO Lasenby, F. Yusef-Zadeh, R. Wielebinski, U. Klein: A new symmetrical polarization structure near the galactic center . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature . tape 317 , no. 6039 , 1985, ISSN  0028-0836 , pp. 697-699 , doi : 10.1038 / 317697a0 .
  19. ↑ Publications of John Hugh Seiradakis - NASA / ADS. Retrieved July 12, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Hel.AS - Past Councils. In: helas.gr. Retrieved May 4, 2020 .
  21. ^ Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. In: www.antikythera-mechanism.gr. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  22. ^ The Antikythera Mechanism: The Construction of the Metonic Pointer and the Back Plate Spirals .
  23. ^ The Astronomical Events of the Parapegma of the Antikythera Mechanism .
  24. ↑ Ancient Moon 'computer' revisited. In: BBC NEWS. November 29, 2006, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  25. ^ John Seabrook: Fragmentary Knowledge. In: The New Yorker. May 14, 2007, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Antikythera Mechanism - Athens - February 10 - May 28. In: ekathimerini.com. February 11, 2017, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  27. ^ Brian Resnick: The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,000-year-old computer. In: Vox. May 17, 2017, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  28. ^ Jonathon Keats: What Is The Ultimate Machined Object? A New Exhibit Of Ingenious Devices Shows How Innovation Works. In: Forbes. July 30, 2019, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  29. ^ The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer. In: BBC. May 10, 2012, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  30. ^ Antikythera Mechanism | Athens | February 10 - May 28 | Kathimerini. In: www.ekathimerini.com. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  31. ↑ Understanding An Ancient Greek Computer. In: www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved May 3, 2020 (American English).
  32. ^ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics. In: legacy.ciera.northwestern.edu. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  33. ^ The World's Oldest Computer: The Antikythera Mechanism. In: www.nationalhellenicmuseum.org. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  34. ^ Idw - Image for: The Antikythera Mechanism: Decoding an astonishing 2nd century BCE astronomical computer. In: idw-online.de. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  35. ↑ John Seiradakis: The Antikythera Mechanism: Decoding of astonishing 2,000 years old astronomical computer . Ed .: CERN (=  Academic Training Lecture Regular Program ). Geneva 2018 ( online ).
  36. ↑ Personal Website of John Seiradakis. In: www.astro.auth.gr. Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  37. ↑ Welcome. Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, August 1, 2016, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  38. ^ International Astronomical Union. In: IAU. August 14, 2006, accessed May 5, 2020 .
  39. ↑ Dr. Loukas Zachilas. In: www.econ.uth.gr. Retrieved May 11, 2020 .
  40. ^ JG Davies, AG Lyne, John Hugh Seiradakis: Pulsar Associated with the Supernova Remnant IC 443 . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature . tape 240 , no. 5378 , 1972, ISSN  0028-0836 , pp. 229-230 , doi : 10.1038 / 240229a0 .
  41. ↑ Dale C. Ferguson, David A. Graham, Bevan B. Jones: Direct observation of pulsar microstructure . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature . tape 260 , no. 5546 , 1976, ISSN  0028-0836 , pp. 25-27 , doi : 10.1038 / 260025a0 .
  42. ↑ T. Freeth, Y. Bitsakis, X. Moussas, John Hugh Seiradakis, A. Tselikas, H. Mangou, M. Zafeiropoulou, R. Hadland, D. Bate, A. Ramsey, M. Allen, A. Crawley, P. Hockley, T. Malzbender, D. Gelb, W. Ambrisco, MG Edmunds: Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature . tape 444 , no. 7119 , 2006, ISSN  0028-0836 , p. 587-591 , doi : 10.1038 / nature05357 .
  43. ↑ John Hugh Seiradakis, MG Edmunds: Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism . In: Springer Science and Business Media LLC (Ed.): Nature Astronomy . tape 2 , no. 1 , 2018, ISSN  2397-3366 , p. 35-42 , doi : 10.1038 / s41550-017-0347-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Seiradakis, John Hugh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seiradakis, John; Σειραδάκης, Ιωάννης-Χιου (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek astronomer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Chania , Crete, Greece
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 2020
Place of death Thessaloniki