Walter Ernst Fricke

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Walter Ernst Fricke , (born April 1, 1915 in Leimbach ; † March 21, 1988 in Heidelberg ) was a German astronomer who worked in the field of theoretical astronomy . During the Second World War he worked as a cryptanalyst .

Live and act

After passing his Abitur in Aschersleben , Walter Fricke studied astronomy, mathematics and physics at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin from 1934 . In 1940 he was awarded a doctorate at Berlin University with a thesis on the influence of a resisting agent in the dynamics of dense star systems rer. nat. PhD. The dissertation was partly carried out at the Göttingen observatory under the guidance of Otto Heckmann . In 1942 he was appointed assistant at the Hamburg observatory , which Heckmann had taken over in 1941. However, due to military service and imprisonment, Fricke was only able to take up this position in 1946.

During the war in 1940 he was in the Signal Corps of the Armed Forces convened . From May 15, 1941, he worked as a cryptographer and cryptanalyst, initially at OKH / Chi , i.e. the encryption department of the Army High Command , and from November 1, 1944 at the encryption department of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW / Chi). He dealt both with defensive cryptology , i.e. checking the cryptographic security of one's own encryption systems , such as the double-box key method and the Enigma machine , as well as offensive cryptology, i.e. deciphering opposing processes, such as breaking the one used by the US armed forces used Hagelin machine .

In 1951 he completed his habilitation with his thesis Dynamic Justification of Velocity Distribution in the Star System at Heckmann at the University of Hamburg . From 1953 to 1954 he worked as a fellow of the DFG at various observatories in the USA: Yerkes , Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar observatories as well as in Princeton (New Jersey) .

In December 1954 he succeeded August Kopff as provisional and from April 1955 planned director of the Astronomical Computing Institute in Heidelberg . In 1961 he became a full professor for theoretical astronomy at Heidelberg University . After his retirement in 1982, he headed the Astronomical Computing Institute until September 1985.

At the beginning of his scientific career, Fricke dealt with theoretical and observational questions in cosmology. After 1945 he devoted himself to questions of kinematics and dynamics of the Milky Way system and related questions of astrophysics at the observatory in Hamburg-Bergedorf . In addition, he published with Heckmann and Pascual Jordan in 1951 an important work on the expansion of Albert Einstein's theory of gravity .

When he took over the management of the Astronomical Computing Institute in Heidelberg, astrometry became his main field of work, where he worked specifically on improving the astronomical reference coordinate system. It occupies an important place in the history of astronomy because, according to it, a fundamental constant of astronomy, the precession constant , is called the "Fricke constant" in a sharp definition he established.

Fricke was active in numerous scientific bodies and societies. From 1969 to 1972 he was chairman of the Astronomical Society and from 1964 to 1967 one of the vice-presidents of the International Astronomical Union .

In 1974 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . He was a member of the Heidelberg and Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1982 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR as a foreign member.

He was an honorary doctor from the universities of Thessaloniki and Bordeaux . In 1974 he was awarded the Jules Janssen Prize . In 1982 he received the Brouwer Award from the American Astronomical Society . In addition, the asteroid (1561) Fricke was named after him.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Treder : Walter Fricke, April 1, 1915 - March 21, 1988 . In: Astronomical News . tape 309 , no. 3 , 1988, pp. 226 , bibcode : 1988AN .... 309..226T .
  • Roland Wielen, Trudpert Lederle: Obituary Walter Fricke 1915-1988 . In: Communications from the Astronomical Society . No. 72 , 1989, pp. 4–14 , bibcode : 1989WitAG..72 .... 4W .
  • R. Wielen, T. Lederle: Obituary: Walter Ernst Fricke (1915–1988) . In: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society . tape 31 , no. 3 , 1990, p. 515-517 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interrogation of Sonderfuehrer Dr. Fricke of the Signal Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command Armed Forces (OKW / Chi) . TICOM interrogation protocol from June 28, 1945. TICOM I-20 PDF; 2.0 MB (English). Retrieved December 21, 2016.
  2. ^ Translations of Joint Report made by Drs. Huttenhain and Fricke on the "Zaehlwerk" Enigma Machine . TICOM I-77 (English)
  3. ↑ Supplementary Paper by Drs. Huettenhain and Fricke on the Solution of the Hagelin Machine . TICOM I-79 (English)
  4. ↑ O. Heckmann, P. Jordan, W. Fricke: To the expanded gravitation theory. I. In: Zeitschrift für Astrophysik . tape 28 , 1951, pp. 113-149 .
  5. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Walter Fricke. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed November 13, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Fricke, Walter Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fricke, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Leimbach (Mansfeld)
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1988
Place of death Heidelberg