Oral history interview with Adriaan Blaauw, 1979 August 19.

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Oral history interview with Adriaan Blaauw, 1979 August 19.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/83030692

Early life and family in Amsterdam; childhood interest in astronomy and telescope-building; undergraduate at Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden (W. deSitter, J. Woltjer), works at Leiden Observatory; growing interest in galactic research (Ejnar Hertzsprung, Jan Oort); contact with others at Leiden (Paul Ehrenfest, Hendrik Kramers). Assistantship at Rijksuniversiteit te Gröningen, 1938; cooperative stellar catalog with Harvard University and Universität Hamburg. Life during the German Occupation, conditions in Leiden and Holland; the Resistance Movement; returns to Leiden, 1945. Begins work on thesis at end of war, continues Jacobus C. Kapteyn's interest in proper motion of helium star (Scorpio-Centaur association); compares Boss Catalog and FK Catalog for systematic errors (Oort). Discussion of postwar developments in time scale problem (Albrecht Unsöld, Victor Ambartsumian). To Yerkes Observatory, 1947; impressions of Yerkes and other American observatories: RR Lyrae variables (Otto Struve), 1947-1948; work on extension of cluster expansion (W. W. Morgan), 1952; work in Kenya on stellar positions (Maarten Schmidt), 1949-1950. Back to Yerkes, 1953-1957 (Bengt Strömgren, Gerard Kuiper, S. Chandrasekhar, A. Hiltner). Directorship of Kapteyn Laboratory, Groningen; organization of the Radio Foundation. Origins and development of European Southern Observatory; five-year term as Director. Views on development of astronomy in Holland (Antoine Pannekoek, Marcel Minnaert, Pieter van Rhijn); radio astronomy.

Sound recordings: 6 sound cassettes (ca. 6.0 hrs.), 1 session.Final transcript: 89 pp.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8293807

Related Entities

There are 19 Entities related to this resource.

Harvard University

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64n9x97 (person)

Harvard College was founded by a vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts on October 28, 1636 that allocated “400£ towards a schoale or colledge.” Subsequent legislative acts established the Board of Overseers, but it was the Charter of 1650 that created the Harvard Corporation as the College's primary governing board and defined its composition and authority. The College Charter became a contentious target for College officials, the Massachusetts Governor and General C...

Kuiper, Gerard P. (Gerard Peter), 1905-1973

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fq9wjf (person)

Yerkes Observatory

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64786cx (corporateBody)

Yerkes Observatory, located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is a facility of the University of Chicago's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The observatory opened in 1897 as the joint creation of three founders: William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago; Professor George E. Hale, the observatory's first director; and Charles T. Yerkes, a wealthy Chicago businessman who provided funds for the erection of the observatory building. Known as the home of the last of t...

Oort, Jan Hendrik

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cj8fsg (person)

Astronomer (galactic structure, interstellar gas, comets). (1900-1992). Astronomer at and, from 1945, Director of the Leiden Observatory; on the faculty of University of Leiden from 192; established observational verification of galactic rotation; one of the authors of the Oort-Lindbald theory of differential galactic rotation; initiator, with Baade, of the European Southern Observatory; general secretary of the International Astronomical Union from 1935-1948, and president from 1958-1961. ...

Unsöld, Albrecht Otto Johannes.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6c6136m (person)

Universität Hamburg.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s82r68 (corporateBody)

European Southern Observatory.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v0mws (corporateBody)

DeVorkin, David H., 1944-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65x2b2g (person)

Kramers, Hendrik Anthony, 1894-1952

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68p66qc (person)

Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gj3czx (corporateBody)

Ehrenfest, Paul, 1880-1933

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fn18ht (person)

Nuclear physicist (statistical mechanics, applied quantum physics). On the physics faculty at Universität Wein (1900-1904); on the staff of Petrogradskii politeknicheskii (1907-1912); and on the physics faculty at Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden (1912-1933). From the description of Papers, 1902-1933. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79973171 ...

Minnaert, M. G. J. (Marcel Gilles Jozef), 1893-1970

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67h9g28 (person)

Kapteyn, J.C. (Jacobus Cornelius), 1851-1922

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6668kwg (person)

Blaauw, Adriaan

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63f4wqx (person)

Ambart︠s︡umi︠a︡n, V. A. (Viktor Amazaspovich)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d53s9z (person)

Sterrewacht Leiden

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d563tj (corporateBody)

Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6644dgt (corporateBody)

Strömgren, Bengt (1908-1987).

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s75hqw (person)

Bengt Georg Daniel Strömgren was an astrophysicist who died in 1987. From the description of Papers. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 83299855 Died 1987. From the description of The development of astrophysics as a research field in the 20th century: paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's George Ellery Hale Centennial Symposium, Dallas, 1968. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 78201727 Bengt Georg Daniel Strömgren (1908-...

Schmidt, Maarten

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vq450d (person)

Maarten Schmidt, (1929-). From the description of Oral history interview with Maarten Schmidt, 1975 March 10. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84461607 Maarten Schmidt (1929-). From the description of Oral history interview with Maarten Schmidt, 1975 June 9 and 1977 October 24. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84244079 ...