Radó from Kövesligethy

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Radó by Kövesligethy around 1895

Radó von Kövesligethy (born September 1, 1862 in Verona , † October 12, 1934 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian astronomer and geophysicist .

Life

Radó Kövesligethy was born the illegitimate son of József Konek, captain in the Austro-Hungarian army , and Josephine Renz in Verona and was named Rudolf. After Veneto was ceded  to Italy after the lost battle of Königgrätz and the withdrawal of the Austrian troops in 1866, he stayed with his mother, who moved with him to her parents' house in Illereichen  in Bavaria. In 1872 his mother married Károly Kövesligethy, a lawyer from an old Hungarian noble family, who adopted him. Radó Kövesligethy attended the state grammar school in Pressburg from 1873 to 1881 and then studied  mathematics, astronomy and physics at the University of Vienna , especially with Theodor von Oppolzer  and Josef Stefan . In 1884 he was with the dissertation principles of mathematical Spectral Analysis Dr. phil. PhD.

As early as 1882 Kövesligethy became an assistant at the Vienna University Observatory and in 1883 an observator. After graduation, he worked at the observatory in Ógyalla  with Miklós Konkoly-Thege , with whose family he had been on friendly terms since his school days and who supported him as a mentor. Loránd Eötvös  convinced him to come to the Physical Institute of Budapest University as his assistant in 1888 . In the summer of 1891 he took part in Eötvös' gravitation experiments on the Ság-hegy. In 1889 he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer , in 1897 he became an associate professor. In 1904 he was appointed full professor of cosmography and geophysics at the University of Budapest, a position he held until he retired in 1932.

In 1906 he founded the Hungarian Seismographic Computing Institute and the University's Seismological Observatory in Budapest. From 1897 to 1914 he was editor of Mathematikai Lapok (mathematical sheets) and member of the editorial board for contributions to geophysics . From 1906 to 1916 he was secretary, later general secretary of the Association Internationale de Seismologie . 1916/1917 he was dean of the philosophy faculty of the University of Budapest.

Kövesligethy died after a long illness on October 12, 1934 and was buried at the Kerepesi temető in Budapest.

Services

Kövesligethy initially dealt with the then emerging spectroscopy . In Ógyalla he observed the spectra of over 2000 stars in addition to the Potsdam catalog by Vogel and Müller. His catalog was published in Hungarian from 1884 to 1886 and in German in 1887 (as was customary at the time under the name Konkolys). Kövesligethy was one of the first to try to put spectroscopy from a purely descriptive character on a mathematical foundation. Using different assumptions about the interaction of radiation and matter, he developed the first successful equation for black body radiation with the following properties: The distribution of the radiation spectrum depends only on the temperature, the total radiation is finite and the wavelength of the intensity maximum is inversely proportional to the temperature. His results, published in Hungarian in 1885 and in German in 1890, remained relatively unnoticed and were only reformulated several years later by Wilhelm Wien  ( Wien's displacement law , 1893) and Max Planck ( Planck's radiation law , 1900).

From around 1900 he was increasingly interested in seismology . He tried to explore the interior of the earth using seismic waves and to predict earthquakes. Using the theory of elasticity , he was able to determine the emersion angle and the depth of the earthquake focus . Kövesligethy initiated a network of seismological stations in Hungary, the first ones started operating in 1902, and by 1914 there were ten stations. In the 1930s he led two expeditions to  investigate the seismological characteristics of the Adriatic .

Folk education was also a major concern of Kövesligethy and he played an active role in founding Budapest's Urania in 1899.

Honors

Bust of Kövesligethys in the university

Publications

Books

  • A folytonos Spektrumok elmélete (The Theory of Continuous Spectra), Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1882
  • Basics of theoretical spectral analysis. Schmidt, Halle an der Saale, 1890
  • A mathematikai és csillagászati ​​földrajz kézikönyve (Handbook of Mathematical and Astronomical Geography), Kogutowitz és Társa, 1899
  • A világegyetem (The Universe), 1906

In magazines

  • About the color change α ursae majoris. In: Wochenschrift für Astronomie, Meteorologie und Geographie, Volume 24 (1881), pp. 313-314
  • Orbits of Meteor Streams, deduced from Observations made during the years 1871-1880 in Hungary. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 42 (1882), pp. 310-323
  • Spectrophotometric studies. Observations made at the Astrophysical Observatory in Ogyalla, Volume 7 (1885), pp. 17-25
  • Observations by Comet 1881 III on the meridian circles of the Stockholm Observatory. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 115 (1886), pp. 231-232
  • Observations of the Andromeda Nebula. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 115 (1886), pp. 305-310
  • About a new method of determining the color of the stars. In: Sirius (1887), pp. 219-223
  • The physical meaning of the star magnitude. In: Astrophysical Journal, Volume 11 (1900), pp. 350-356
  • Seismonomia. In: Bollettino della Società Sismologica Italiana, Volume 11 (1906), pp. 113-250

literature

Web links

Commons : Radó Kövesligethy  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b László Kovács Sr .: Budapest: A Random Walk in Science and Culture. In: Physics in Perspective, Volume 5 (2003), pp. 310-348, doi : 10.1007 / s00016-003-0174-y
  2. ^ Lajos Balázs, Magda Vargha, Endre Zsoldos: A Pioneer of the Theory of Stellar Spectra - Radó von Kövesligethy. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 328 (2007), p. 692, bibcode : 2007AN .... 328..692B
  3. ↑ P. Mónus: Seismological observation in Hungary. In: Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica, Volume 40 (2005), pp. 361-366, doi : 10.1556 / AGeod.40.2005.3-4.8
  4. ^ Lutz D. Schmadel: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . 6th edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-29717-5 , p. 1255 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-29718-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Kövesligethy, Radó from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian astronomer and geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Verona
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1934
Place of death Budapest