Rudolph Minkowski

Rudolph Leo Bernhard Minkowski ( born May 28, 1895 in Strasbourg, † January 4, 1976 in Berkeley, California ) was a German -American, Jewish astrophysicist. He was a son of Pathology Professor Oskar Minkowski and a nephew of Hermann Minkowski.

Minkowski served in the First World War as a soldier and received his doctorate at the University of Breslau. First he worked on atomic physics and optics. In 1922 he came to the State Physical Laboratory in Hamburg, where he was lecturer at the University in 1926 and 1930, Professor. In Hamburg he turned to observational astronomy, for which he was already interested in since teenage years. Here was also important friendship with Walter Baade in Hamburg, of him even after the seizure of power by the National Socialists ( Minkowski had Jewish ancestors and was married to a Jewess, the daughter of a Leipzig Judge Luise David) advised to emigrate. In 1935 he went to mediation by Baade to the Mount Wilson Observatory in the United States, where he remained until his retirement in 1960. Thereafter, however, he researched further at the University of California, Berkeley.

Minkowski was primarily concerned with the detection and investigation of planetary nebula, with novae and supernovae. The classification of supernovae into types I and II (together with Walter Baade ) yielded a significant contribution to the astronomical distance determination.

He also developed instruments such as Schmidt cameras for spectrographs. Minkowski was head of the National Geographic Society Sky Survey and the Palomar Observatory in the 1950s ( Photographic mapping of the northern night sky ). He was also active in the optical identification of the discovered in the 1950s strong radio sources in the sky (in collaboration with Walter Baade ), including Cygnus A.

In 1961 he was awarded the Bruce Medal.

After Rudolph and Hermann Minkowski, a lunar crater is named.

Discoveries

Rudolph Minkowski discovered a number of astronomical objects. The following list is not exhaustive:

  • M 1-12
  • M 1-46
  • M 1-59
Minkowski (crater) Neue Deutsche Biographie Astrophysics Data System Integrated Authority File
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