Otto Volk

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Otto Volk (left) together with Eduard Stiefel in Oberwolfach , 1978

Otto Volk (born July 13, 1892 in Neuhausen auf den Fildern ; † March 21, 1989 in Würzburg ) was a German mathematician , astronomer and patron .

Life

Volk grew up as the fifth of 13 children of the teacher Josef Volk (in Neuhausen adF). He attended the Latin school in Rottenburg am Neckar from 1903 to 1906 and the grammar school in Ehingen an der Donau until his Abitur in 1910 .

The study of Catholic theology and philosophy from 1910 to 1914 at the University of Tübingen and the state examination passed in the same year with subsequent ordination in 1915 was followed by mathematics studies in Tübingen (among others with Oskar Perron ) and at the TH Munich (among others with Georg Faber and Heinrich Liebmann ).

After one year of school service in 1917 in Schwäbisch Gmünd and Feuerbach near Stuttgart , Volk was awarded a Dr.-Ing. In 1918 at the TH Munich. PhD . He moved to the University of Munich as assistant to Aurel Voss , Ferdinand Lindemann and Alfred Pringsheim . There he received his doctorate degree from Ferdinand Lindemann in 1920 with a thesis on development sets based on the functions of the elliptical cylinder. PhD. After his habilitation in 1922 at the University of Munich, he was from 1923 to 1930 full professor and head of the institute for mathematics and astronomy that he was to establish at the Kaunas University in Lithuania, which was being established .

Due to the political situation in Lithuania, Volk accepted an extraordinary position under the mathematicians Georg Rost and Eduard von Weber in Würzburg in 1930 and became Weber's successor in 1935. After Rost's retirement in 1937, Volk also became professor for astronomy and held the position of director of the mathematical seminar and head of the astronomical institute and the observatory of the University of Würzburg.

In the years of his scheduled astronomical observations, he also dealt with celestial mechanics. The Kleine Planet 1937TF, discovered by K. Reinmuth in Heidelberg, was named " Rostia (Asteroid) " after its predecessor Georg Rost at the suggestion of Otto Volk .

In 1937 Volk became the first dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences , which was founded in the same year , but was dismissed for political reasons in 1938. Shortly after the end of the war, he tried to clean up the astronomical and mathematical facilities destroyed by the bombing of March 16, 1945.

After Volk, who had been a party member of the NSDAP from 1938, was ousted by the military government in 1945, he became an employee and deputy director of the Mathematical Research Institute in Oberwolfach from 1947 to 1949 . A re-employment in Bavaria after denazification initially prevented the Bavarian Minister of Education and Culture Alois Hundhammer. In 1949 Volk was reappointed full professor in Würzburg and at the same time retired due to health reasons. In 1959 Volk retired.

Volk took on teaching positions at the Ohm Polytechnic in Nuremberg and, through the mediation of Guido Hoheisel, at the University of Cologne . In Würzburg he continued to give regular and numerous lectures on celestial mechanics, the history of mathematics and the history of the University of Würzburg until the summer semester of 1988.

In 1969, Volk turned down the appointment to the University of Izmir in Turkey .

Otto Volk was buried in the Würzburg forest cemetery after he died on March 21, 1989.

astronomy

In 1961, Volk directed the construction of the emergency observatory on the pulpit of Hof Ober-Frankfurt , the former residence of Balthasar Neumann at Franziskanergasse 2 , and has been in effect since the two-year construction of the observatory on the Keesburg and opening in 1966 on Johannes-Kepler-Straße in Würzburg as the "father of the observatory".

As a result of Volks's efforts, the chair for astronomy was established at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in 1965 , which he headed provisionally until 1967 when Hans Haffner took office. Volk donated a bronze plaque in memory of the first Würzburg University Observatory built by Franz Huberti on the tower of the Würzburg University Church. The bronze plaque is located at the foot of the new church.

Honors

  • 1987 Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
  • July 14, 1989 memorial colloquium by the Mathematical Institute in Würzburg
  • Memorial room in the Mathematical Institute in Würzburg

Foundation, endowment

In 1983 Volk established the Otto Volk Foundation , which is administered by the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . The purpose of the foundation is: "To promote research in the field of mathematics, celestial mechanics and the history of mathematics and astronomy at the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Würzburg". The Otto Volk Foundation annually awards the Otto Volk Medal in silver for excellent performance in final exams and doctorates at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Würzburg. The bronze medal can be purchased, the gold variant is awarded for special ties to the mathematical institute. The foundation regularly provides larger contributions to the procurement of specialist literature, it supports historical research projects, exhibitions and lectures.

literature

  • Elmar Ullrich: In memoriam Otto Volk (1892-1989). In: Würzburger medical history reports 23, 2004, pp. 559–566.
  • Observation Circular of Astronomical News , Volume 22, No. 1, 1940 January 6, Page 1
  • Hans-Joachim Vollrath: 40 years of Mathematical Institutes at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg , 1989

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Joachim Vollrath (1989)
  2. ↑ Elmar Ullrich (2004), p. 563.
  3. ↑ Elmar Ullrich (2004), p. 564.
  4. ^ Table for the first observatory at the University of Würzburg In: w-volk.de, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Volk, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician, astronomer and patron
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuhausen on the Fildern
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1989
Place of death Wurzburg