Bicentenary of Johann Elert Bode
1947; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 159; Issue: 4029 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/159089c0
ISSN1476-4687
AutoresDr Walker, Geoffrey Arthur, E. T. Copson, J Vvhittaker, John W. Semple, H. S. Ruse, W. H. McCrea,
ResumoJANUARY 19 is the bicentenary of the birth of Johann Elert Bode, who at one time was the foremost astronomer in Germany. The son of a schoolmaster at Hamburg, from boyhood Bode was given to astronomical calculations and observations, and at the age of twenty-one published an elementary treatise which became very popular. He next published an essay on the transit of Venus of 1769. In 1772 Frederick II of Prussia called him to Berlin and made him astronomer to the Academy of Sciences, and the remainder of his life was spent in the Prussian capital. He commenced in 1774 the periodical Astronomische Jahrbucher, and in 1778 re-stated the law of planetary distance known by his name, which, however, had been stated previously by Titius and Wolf. It was through Bode that the name Uranus was given to the planet discovered by his fellow-countryman Herschel. His “Uranographia”, published in 1801, gave observations of 17,240 stars. He made no important discoveries of astronomical objects, but by his writings and activities did much to diffuse a knowledge of astronomy in a country where for a time scientific studies had languished through the disasters of war. Bode died in Berlin on November 23, 1826, aged seventy-nine.
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