Wilhelm Schur

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Wilhelm Schur.

Wilhelm Schur (born April 15, 1846 in Altona , † July 1, 1901 in Göttingen ) was a German astronomer .

From 1873 Schur worked at the Strasbourg observatory, most recently as deputy director. In 1874 he took part in the German Venus transit expedition on Auckland Island. In 1886 he was appointed to Göttingen as professor of practical astronomy and as the second successor to Carl Friedrich Gauß as director of the observatory. After Gauss and Klinkerfues, he was the last head of the observatory who devoted himself to positional astronomy . After the modernization of the observatory, he mainly dealt with the triangulation of star clusters and published catalogs of astronomical observations by Wilhelm Klinkerfues and Wilhelm Olbers .

Life

Adolph Christian Wilhelm Schur was born on April 15, 1846 in Hamburg-Altona as the son of the wine merchant Friedrich Wilhelm Schur and his wife Johanna Tormählen.

education

At the age of 14 he took part in a competition of the educational association for Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg and won a small prize for solving mathematical problems. As the grandson of Adolph Cornelius Petersen , the acting head of the Altona observatory , he found access to the observatory even after the death of his grandfather, where he had the opportunity to make simple astronomical observations and calculations between 1860 and 1862 under the observer Heinrich Wilhelm Theodor Seeling. Until 1864 he attended the Polytechnische Vorbildungsanstalt in Hamburg.

For the summer semester of 1864 Schur enrolled at Kiel University, where he attended lectures on mathematics and astronomy with Georg Daniel Eduard Weyer , in physics with Gustav Karsten and in philosophy with Friedrich Harms . From the winter semester 1864/1865 to the summer semester 1867 he attended the University of Göttingen. His teachers were Moritz Stern and Karl Hattendorff in mathematics , Wilhelm Eduard Weber in physics and in astronomy “he enjoyed the lessons from Wilhelm Klinkerfues, which were particularly stimulating in close personal contact ”. In April 1867 he published his first astronomical work “Orbit determination of the double star Σ 3062” in the “ Astronomische Nachrichten ”. In October 1867 he obtained his doctorate with the dissertation "Investigations into the orbit of the double star 70 p Ophiuchi". For the winter semester of 1867/1868 he moved to Berlin University, where he attended lectures in astronomy with Arthur von Auwers and Wilhelm Foerster and in physics with Heinrich Wilhelm Dove , Johann Christian Poggendorff and Georg Quincke .

Working life

Members of the Venus transit expedition, 2nd front left: Wilhelm Schur.

From November 1868 to the end of 1872 Schur was employed as an assistant in the central office of the European degree measurement (from 1870 Royal Prussian Geodetic Institute ) with triangulation work in Central Germany.

Venus transit

Since Schur wanted to take part in the observations of the Venus transit in 1874, he gave up his position at the end of 1872, worked temporarily at the Berlin observatory and went to Strasbourg in July 1873, where he was hired as an assistant at the observatory. Under the director of the Strasbourg observatory Friedrich Winnecke , he took part in the preparatory work for the expedition. The expedition set out in July 1874 and arrived at the observation site on Auckland Island in northeast New Zealand in mid-October . After observing the transit of Venus on December 9th, the members of the expedition made a series of final measurements before starting their return journey in March 1875, which lasted until June. The expedition lasted 111 days in total.

Strasbourg

After his return from the expedition, Schur returned to his position at the Strasbourg observatory, was promoted to observatory in 1877, and when Winnecke fell ill in 1882, he took over as deputy director of the observatory. He completed the instrumentation of the newly built observatory and set up extensive series of observations and measurements on the passage instrument and the heliometers of the observatory. During this time he worked scientifically on the determination of cometary orbits and the change in light of variable stars. In the summer of 1875 he took part in the telegraphic determination of the length of Strasbourg-Munich-Vienna. In 1881 he completed his habilitation at the University of Strasbourg with the text "Determination of the mass of the planet Jupiter from heliometer observations of the distances between its satellites".

  • Strasbourg observatory, 2009.

  • Göttingen observatory, 1887.

  • Large Repsold's heliometer, 1888.

  • Triangulation of Praesepe, 1895.

Goettingen

At Easter 1886 Schur was appointed to the University of Göttingen as a full professor of practical astronomy and as the second successor to Carl Friedrich Gauß as director of the observatory.

Under Schur, "an almost complete reconstruction" of the observatory took place in 1887/1888, "in which almost only the walls were preserved". In particular, the roof structures of the meridian halls were renewed and the outdated rotating dome was replaced by a new one. Together with an assistant, in a year and a half until 1899, Schur created the catalogs for the over 11,000 books and brochures in the observatory library, "which is the first time in 44 years that the library appears in an orderly condition". In contrast to his predecessor Wilhelm Klinkerfues , he succeeded in modernizing the inadequate equipment in the observatory. At the end of 1888 he acquired a new main instrument, a large Repsold heliometer. In the years that followed, Schur devoted all of his work to observing this instrument. His most important work included the triangulation of Praesepe (1889-1893) and the two star clusters h Persei and χ Persei (1891-1896). The averaging of the results of his Praesepe measurements led to 123 equations with 74 unknowns, which he solved using Gauss' least squares method , a huge calculation that took him 10 weeks to complete.

In addition to his own research, Schur also devoted himself to astronomical and historical tasks in Göttingen. In 1891 he published a star catalog with 6,000 star words, which his teacher Wilhelm Klinkerfues had determined during his zone observations from 1858 to 1869. In 1899 he published a catalog of newly reduced observations of comets and minor planets that Wilhelm Olbers had made from 1795 to 1831. For the 150th anniversary of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen in 1901, he wrote a historical overview of the development of astronomy in the Kingdom of Hanover and neighboring areas in the last years of his life.

At the beginning of 1901, Wilhelm Schur showed signs of severe gastric cancer, which tied him to his room so that he could only partially continue his work. On July 1, 1901, the 55-year-old was released from his suffering by a gentle death.

family

During his time in Strasbourg, Wilhelm Schur married Lucie (Gertrud Wilhelmina) Thorn (* 1852 Neuwied) on September 29, 1883, the eldest daughter of a general practitioner in Neuwied. The marriage remained childless.

Wilhelm Schur's father was the Altona wine merchant Friedrich Wilhelm Schur (1817–1865), his mother was Johanna Helene Antoinette Thormälen (* 1820). Schur's paternal grandfather was the Berlin-born pharmacist Johann Carl Andreas Schur, who came to Altona in 1796 and founded a soap factory there. His widow married the astronomer Adolph Cornelius Petersen in 1832 , the acting head of the Altona observatory and co-editor of the “ Astronomical News ”, who was 7 years old at the time.

personality

In 1898 Martin Brendel was appointed professor for theoretical astronomy and geodesy in Göttingen. In the three years up to Wilhelm Schur's death, he got to know him personally as an extremely conscientious and lovable colleague:

“… Schur's most outstanding character traits were an iron diligence and a complete devotion to the work he undertook; what he had once set out to do, he carried out with untiring loyalty to his duty. He knew no sparing for himself; he most painfully kept the numerous hours of service he had set up for himself. ... It was a satisfaction for him, not to say a need, even if others around him were active with the same zeal. The undersigned vividly remembers how difficult it was at times to tear him away from his desk to go for a walk, which he urgently needed for his recovery, especially at a time when his health was already somewhat affected. As faithful as Schur was in his quiet work, he was just as modest in his outward appearance. He has never tried to come out with himself in any way. Anyone who had the opportunity to get to know him closely enough could convince himself that beneath his quiet exterior a rare kindness of heart was hidden. "

Wilhelm Schur also suffered from the division of the observatory management into two parts, which had existed since 1868 and which was only lifted with the death of Ernst Schering in 1897. In an obituary for Schering, he wrote:

"Notwithstanding some of the difficulties caused by the second healing of the observatory, the coexistence of the deceased and the undersigned for a period of more than eleven years was a thoroughly friendly one."

Memberships and honors

Publications

Detailed catalogs of works: Publications by Schur in the Astrophysics Data System, #Meyermann 1901 .

  • Wilhelm Schur: Determination of the orbit of the double star Σ 3062. By Mr. Stud. W. Schur. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 69, 1867, pp. 49–54, download.digitale-sammlungen.de (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: Investigations on the orbit of the double star 70 p Ophiuchi. Inaugural dissertation to obtain the philosophical doctorate at the University of Göttingen by Wilhelm Schur from Altona. Altona: Hammerich & Lesser, 1867, books.google.de (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: Diary during the trip to observe the Venus passage in 1874. Manuscript. Without a place, 1874.
  • Wilhelm Schur: Determination of the mass of the planet Jupiter from heliometer observations of the distances between its satellites. Hall: Blochmann, 1882.
  • Wilhelm Schur (editor); Wilhelm Klinkerfues: Stern catalog, containing 6000 star locations for 1860.0 according to the zone observations made by Wilhelm Klinkerfues in the years 1858–1869. Göttingen, 1891, books.google.de (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur; August Winnecke: The locations of the brighter stars of Praesepe derived from the observations made on the large heliometer in Göttingen and the earlier observations made by Professor Winnecke on the Bonn heliometer. Wilhelm Schur, professor of astronomy and director of the observatory. Göttingen: Dieterich, 1895, adsbit.harvard.edu (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: Death notice Ernst Christian Julius Schering . In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 145, 1897, p. 31.
  • Wilhelm Schur: Derivation of relative places of the moon against the sun, from heliometric measurements of chord lengths, carried out at the Göttingen observatory during the partial solar eclipses of 1890 June 16/17 (observers: Schur, Ambronn and Hayn) and of 1891 June 6 (observers : Schur). Berlin: Weidmann, 1898, [1] (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: New reduction of the observations of comets and small planets made by Wilhelm Olbers in the period from 1795 to 1831 at his observatory in Bremen; Calculated from the original manuscripts by Wilhelm Schur and Albert Stichtenoth in Göttingen. Berlin: J. Springer, 1899, goobi.tib.eu (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: Measurement of the two star clusters h and χ Persei with the six-inch heliometer of the observatory in Göttingen combined with an overview of all instrumental examinations carried out up to 1900: With a star map; Presented at the meeting on February 3, 1900 by Wilhelm Schur. Göttingen: Dieterich, 1900, [2] (PDF).
  • Wilhelm Schur: Contributions to the history of astronomy in Hanover. In: Festschrift to celebrate the hundred and fifty years of existence of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Contributions to the scholarly history of Göttingen. Weidmann, Berlin 1901, pp. 89–152.
  • Wilhelm Schur; Leopold Ambronn: The measurements of the sun's diameter on the Repsold's 6-inch heliometer at the Göttingen observatory. Executed by W. Schur and L. Ambronn. Edited by L. Ambronn. Berlin: Dieterich, 1905, adsbit.harvard.edu (PDF).

Translations

  • Richard Proctor : Our position in space. Authorized German edition of Richard A. Proctor's "Our place among infinities". Edited and annotated by Dr. Wilhelm Schur, assistant at the Imperial University Observatory in Strasbourg. Heilbronn: Henninger, 1877, books.google.de .

literature

  • Leopold Ambronn: Death notice [from Adolf Christian Wilhelm Schur]. In: Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 156, 1901, Column 175–176, adsabs.harvard.edu (PDF).
  • Ernst Becker : Wilhelm Schur †. Member of the German Mathematicians Association . In: German Mathematicians Association (ed.): Annual report of the German Mathematicians Association . tape 11 . Teubner, 1902, ISSN  0012-0456 , p. 292-301 ( uni-goettingen.de ).
  • Martin Brendel : [Nekrolog] Adolph Christian Wilhelm Schur. In: Quarterly magazine of the Astronomical Society. Volume 36, 1901, pp. 164–170, portrait: after 162 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Bruno Meyermann : Directory of the writings of W. Schur. In: Vierteljahresschrift der Astronomische Gesellschaft, Volume 36, 1901, pp. 170–172 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • [Obituary] Adolph Christian Wilhelm Schur. In: The Observatory, Volume 24, pp. 309-310, adsabs.harvard.edu (PDF).
  • Fritz Treichel: Schur, Adolph Christian Wilhelm. In: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck, Volume 7, 1985, pp. 287–289.
  • Hans-Heinrich Voigt : Wilhelm Schur. In: Karl Arndt: Göttingen scholars: the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen in portraits and appreciations 1751-2001. Volume 1. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001, pp. 278-279.
  • Ian Armitage: The 1874 german transit of Venus expedition at the Auckland Islands, then & now: some photographic comparisons from a visit in 2007. Eastbourne, New Zealand: The Wallypug Press, 2011, www2.phys.canterbury.ac.nz (PDF) .
  • Lutz Brandt: Wilhelm Schur and 100 years of Praesepe measurement. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen, Volume 32, 1995, pp. 69–76.
  • Hilmar W. Duerbeck : The German transit of Venus expeditions of 1874 and 1882: organization, methods, stations, results. In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 7, 2004, Number 1, pp. 8-17, adsabs.harvard.edu (PDF).
  • Robert Förster: The Göttingen observatory through the ages - conversions and restorations. In: Georg Heinrich Borheck, Klaus Beuermann (Hrsg.): Principles on the construction of new observatories with reference to the observatory of the University of Göttingen. Universitätsverlag, Göttingen 2005, pp. 46–50.
  • Fritz Wever : Reconstruction of the Göttingen observatory. In: Journal of the architecture and engineering association in Hanover. Volume 39, 1893, col. 157–164, drawings: sheet 6–8.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Schur  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : German expedition to observe the transit of Venus III on Auckland Island  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Heinrich Seeling studied from 1854 at the University of Kiel, where he also received his doctorate, then worked as a teacher at private institutes in Altona and was already entrusted with work for the observatory several times. In 1861 he was an observer at the Glasgow observatory and in 1862 at the Altona observatory. In 1863 he went to Paris. See: Lexicon of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg and Eutinian writers .
  2. ↑ # Becker 1902 , p. 293, register Kiel .
  3. ↑ # Becker 1902 , p. 293.
  4. ↑ #Schur 1867.1 .
  5. ↑ #Schur 1867.2 .
  6. ↑ #Becker 1902 , p. 293, lecture notes , search term: "Wilhelm Schur Handschrift".
  7. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , pp. 164-165.
  8. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , pp. 165–166, #Schur 1874 .
  9. ↑ #Schur 1882 , #Brendel 1901 , pp. 166-167, #Treichel 1985 , p. 288.
  10. ↑ #Wever 1893 , column 157.
  11. ↑ #Wever 1893 , # Förster 2005 , #Schur 1901 , pp. 151, 152.
  12. ↑ #Schur 1901 , p. 140. - "For 44 years": since the death of Gauss.
  13. ↑ #Brandt 1995 , #Schur 1895 , #Schur 1900 .
  14. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , p. 168.
  15. ↑ #Schur 1891 .
  16. ↑ #Schur 1899 .
  17. ↑ #Schur 1901 .
  18. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , pp. 169-170.
  19. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , p. 167.
  20. ↑ #Treichel 1985 , S. 287th
  21. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , p. 169.
  22. ↑ #Schur 1897 .
  23. ↑ # Becker 1902 , p. 301.
  24. ↑ #Treichel 1985 , p. 289.
  25. ↑ #Brendel 1901 , pp. 166-167.
  26. ^ Leopoldina, List of Members .
  27. ↑ #Voigt 2001 .
  28. ↑ #Treichel 1985 , p. 289.
personal data
SURNAME Schur, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schur, Adolph Christian Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1901
Place of death Goettingen