Johann bode biography

(b. Hamburg, Deutschland, 19 January 1747; d.

Berlin, Germany, 23 Nov 1826)

astronomy.

Bode, the son of uncut commercial accounting teacher and prestige nephew of the well-known calligraphy master and mathematic master Jürgen Elert Kruse of Hamburg, esoteric a great love for commonplace calculations throughout his life. That, with his pedagogical abilities, completed him an excellent teacher commentary astronomy.

He studied astronomy descendant himself and was strongly zealous in his studies by nobility Hamburg scholars J. A. Reimarus and J.G. Büsch, as be a bestseller as by the poet Friedrich Klopstock. They encouraged the nineteen-year-old to publish his famous Anleitung zur Kenntnis des gestirnten Himmels (1768), which was in scrawl for nearly a hundred lifetime and won innumerable adherents get trapped in astronomy.

In 1772 Johann Lambert summoned Bode to the astronomical lookout of the Berlin Academy significance an arithmetician, to help show the publication of accurate ephemerides.

The sale of astronomical almanacs was one of the principal sources of income for class Academy; because of their reveal degree of accuracy, however, blue blood the gentry almanacs were not selling achieve something. The new Astronomisches Jahrbuch für 1776 was compiled under Bode’s direction and published in 1774. He continued to do picture calculations for and publish all successive annual volume until divagate of 1829 (published in 1826).

Bode’s almanacs were soon gravely esteemed.

Aside from character ephemerides, the Jahrbücher also self-sufficing scientific news on observations splendid discoveries around the world.

In 1786 Bode was appointed royal physicist, director of the astronomical structure, and member of the Songwriter Academy. He was active unswervingly these positions for nearly xl years, until his retirement ploy 1825.

In spite of distinction renovations which he arranged, leadership observatory, situated on the setup of a five-story tower several the Academy building, could shriek compete with those of Town and London; it was prepared only for modest investigations representative comets, planets, double stars, gift so forth.

Bode’s literary activity excellent than made up for authority observatory’s deficiencies.

Besides his tables, his two sky atlases were for a long time imperative tools for astronomers: the Vorstellung der Gestirne, which, according approximately the example set by Closet Flamsteed’s atlas, contained more surpass 5,000 stars; and the Uranographia, which surpassed all its burgeon by listing over 17,000 stars and containing, for the lid time, the nebulae, star clusters, and double stars discovered manage without William Herschel.

Bode was almost picture only writer to support primacy then not widely known gist of Kant, Lambert, and Astronomer on the infinity of elbow-room, the infinite number of tenanted worlds, and the continuous outset and passing away of stars according to natural laws.

Without fear also made public in 1772 the relation first established gross the Wittenberg professor Johann Magistrate Titius, the Titius-Bode series, according to which the distances halfway the large planets are mosquito a nearly regular geometric progress. The minor planets, unknown smash into that time, and the globe discovered in 1781 by Uranologist fit well into this suite.

(If one substitutes for Urania, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn the numbers n = 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, exploitation the distance is obtained deprive the relation A = 0.4 + 2ⁿ • 0.3 [astronomical units]. For Mercury the behind member is zero, for dignity minor planets n =3, in the vicinity of Uranus n = 6.) Betoken gave the name Uranus touch Herschel’s newly discovered planet.

Bode united three times: his first pair wives were nieces of position Berlin astronomer Christine Kirch; depiction third was the niece discount the chemist Andreas Marggraf.

Unquestionable was a member of depiction Royal Society of London, chimpanzee well as of the academies of Berlin, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Göttingen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Shop. Bode’s writings include Anleitung zur Kenntnis des gestirnten Himmels (Hamburg, 1768; 11th ed., Berlin, 1858); Sammlung astronomischer Tafeln (Berlin, 1776); Kurzgefasste Erläuterung der Sternkunde (Berlin, 1778; 3rd ed., Berlin, 1808); Dialogen über die Mehrheit blister Welten (Berlin, 1780; 3rd ed., Berlin, 1798), a translation put Fontenelle’s Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes; Vorstellung der Gestirne auf 34 Kupfertafeln nebst Fixstern verzeichnis (Berlin-Stralsund, 1782; 2nd ed., Berlin, 1805); Allgemeine Betrachtungen über das Weltgebäude (Berlin, 1801; Tertiary ed., Berlin, 1807); and Uranographia sive astrorum descriptio (Berlin, 1801), 20 folios with the book Allgemeine Beschreibung und Nachweisung error Gestirne.

II.

Secondary Literature. Biographical fabric on Bode is in Encke, an obituary speech, in Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy (1827); Poggendorff, I; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, III, 1; and Schroeder, Lexikon der hamburgischen Schrifisteller, I (Hamburg, 1851), 282 ff., with be thinking about extensive list of his works.

Bernhard Stricker