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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Herschel Friedrich Wilhelm. Biography of the scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
At the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, astronomy was limited to knowledge of the solar system. Nothing was yet known about the nature of the stars, about the distances between them, about their distribution in space. The first attempts to penetrate deeper into the secret of the structure of the stellar Universe through careful observations with the help of the most powerful telescopes are associated with the name of the astronomer Herschel. Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was born on November 15, 1738 in Hannover to the oboist of the Hanoverian guard Isaac Herschel and Anna Ilse Moritzen. The Herschel Protestants were from Moravia, which they left, probably for religious reasons. The atmosphere of the parental home can be called intellectual. "Biographical Note", Wilhelm's diary and letters, memoirs of his younger sister Caroline introduce us to Herschel's house and world of interests and show the truly titanic work and dedication that created an outstanding observer and researcher. He received an extensive but unsystematic education. Classes in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy revealed his ability to exact sciences. But besides this, Wilhelm had great musical abilities and at the age of fourteen he joined the regimental band as a musician. In 1757, after four years of military service, he left for England, where his brother Yakov, bandmaster of the Hanoverian regiment, had moved somewhat earlier. Not having a penny in his pocket, Wilhelm, renamed William in England, took up copying notes in London. In 1766 he moved to Bath, where he soon achieved great fame as a performer, conductor and music teacher. But such a life could not fully satisfy him. Herschel's interest in natural science and philosophy, constant self-education led him to a passion for astronomy. “What a pity that music is not a hundred times more difficult than science, I love activity and I need something to do,” he wrote to his brother. In 1773 Herschel acquired a number of works on optics and astronomy. Smith's Complete System of Optics and Ferguson's Astronomy became his reference books. In the same year, he first looked at the sky in a small telescope with a focal length of about 75 cm, but observations with such a low magnification did not satisfy the researcher. Since there were no funds to buy a faster telescope, he decided to make it himself. Having bought the necessary tools and blanks, he independently cast and polished a mirror for his first telescope. Having overcome great difficulties, Herschel in the same 1773 made a reflector with a focal length of more than 1,5 m. , since stopping the grinding process worsened the quality of the mirror. The work turned out to be not only difficult, but also dangerous, once a melting furnace exploded while making a blank for a mirror. Sister Caroline and brother Alexander were William's faithful and patient helpers in this difficult work. Diligence and enthusiasm gave excellent results. The mirrors made by Herschel from an alloy of copper and tin were of excellent quality and gave perfectly round images of the stars. As the famous American astronomer C. Whitney writes, "from 1773 to 1782, the Herschels were busy turning from professional musicians into professional astronomers." In 1775 Herschel began his first "survey of the sky". At this time, he still continued to earn his living as a musician, but astronomical observations became his true passion. Between music lessons, he made mirrors for telescopes, gave concerts in the evenings, and spent his nights observing the stars. For this purpose, Herschel proposed an original new method of "star scoops", that is, counting the number of stars in certain areas of the sky. On March 13, 1781, while observing, Herschel noticed something unusual: “Between ten and eleven in the evening, when I was studying faint stars in the neighborhood of η Gemini, I noticed one that looked larger than the rest. Surprised by its unusual size, I compared her with η Gemini and a small star in the square between the constellations Auriga and Gemini, and found that it was much larger than either of them. I suspected that it was a comet." The object had a pronounced disk and moved along the ecliptic. Having informed other astronomers about the discovery of the "comet", Herschel continued to observe it. A few months later, two well-known scientists - Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences A.I. Leksel and Academician of the Paris Academy of Sciences P. Laplace - having calculated the orbit of an open celestial object, proved that Herschel had discovered a planet that was located beyond Saturn. The planet, later named Uranus, was almost 3 billion kilometers from the Sun and exceeded the volume of the Earth by more than 60 times. For the first time in the history of science, a new planet was discovered, since the previously known five planets have been observed in the sky for centuries. The discovery of Uranus pushed the boundaries of the solar system more than twice and brought glory to its discoverer. Nine months after the discovery of Uranus, on December 7, 1781, Herschel was elected a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, he was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University and a gold medal from the Royal Society of London (in 1789, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected him an honorary member). The discovery of Uranus determined Herschel's career. King George III, himself an amateur astronomer and patron of the Hanoverians, appointed him in 1782 "Royal Astronomer" with an annual salary of 200 pounds. The King also provided him with funds to build a separate observatory at Slow, near Windsor. Here Herschel set about astronomical observations with youthful fervor and unusual constancy. According to the biographer Arago, he left the observatory only to present the results of his vigilant labors to the royal society. Herschel continued to focus on improving telescopes. He completely discarded the second small mirror, which had been used until then, and thereby significantly increased the brightness of the image. Gradually Herschel increased the diameters of the mirrors. Its peak was the giant telescope built in 1789 for that time, with a pipe 12 m long and a mirror 122 cm in diameter. This telescope remained unsurpassed until 1845, when the Irish astronomer W. Parsons built an even larger telescope - almost 18 meters long with a mirror diameter 183 cm. Using the latest telescope, Herschel discovered two moons of Uranus and two moons of Saturn. Thus, the discovery of several celestial bodies in the solar system is associated with the name of Herschel. But this is not the main significance of his remarkable activity. And before Herschel, several dozen double stars were known. But such stellar pairs were considered as random encounters of their constituent stars, and it was not assumed that binary stars are widespread in the Universe. Herschel carefully explored different parts of the sky over the years and discovered over 400 double stars. He investigated the distances between the components (in angular measures), their color and apparent brilliance. In some cases, stars that were previously considered binary turned out to be triple and quadruple (multiple stars). Herschel came to the conclusion that double and multiple stars are systems of stars physically connected to each other and, as he was convinced, revolving around a common center of gravity, according to the law of universal gravitation. Herschel was the first astronomer in the history of science to systematically study binary stars. Since ancient times, the bright nebula in the constellation of Orion, as well as the nebula in the constellation Andromeda, visible to the naked eye, have been known. But only in the XNUMXth century, as telescopes improved, many nebulae were discovered. Kant and Lambert believed that nebulae are entire star systems, other Milky Ways, but remote at colossal distances at which individual stars cannot be distinguished. Herschel did a great job discovering and studying new nebulae. He used the ever-increasing power of his telescopes for this. Suffice it to say that the catalogs compiled by him on the basis of his observations, the first of which appeared in 1786, include about 2500 nebulae. Herschel's task, however, was not simply to find nebulae, but to reveal their nature. In his powerful telescopes, many nebulae were clearly divided into individual stars and thus turned out to be star clusters far from the solar system. In some cases, the nebula turned out to be a star surrounded by a nebulous ring. But other nebulae were not separated into stars, even with the help of the most powerful - 122-cm telescope. At first, Herschel concluded that almost all nebulae are actually collections of stars, and the most distant of them will also decompose into stars in the future - when observed with even more powerful telescopes. At the same time, he admitted that some of these nebulae are not star clusters within the Milky Way, but independent star systems. Further research forced Herschel to deepen and complete his views. The world of nebulae turned out to be more complex and diverse than previously could be expected. Continuing to tirelessly observe and reflect, Herschel recognized that many of the observed nebulae cannot be decomposed into stars at all, since they consist of much more rarefied matter (“luminous liquid,” as Herschel thought) than stars. Thus, Herschel came to the conclusion that nebulous matter, like stars, is widespread in the universe. Naturally, the question arose about the role of this substance in the Universe, about whether it is the material from which stars arose. Back in 1755, I. Kant put forward a hypothesis about the formation of entire stellar systems from the initially existing scattered matter. Herschel boldly suggested that different types of indecomposable nebulae represent different stages of star formation. By compacting the nebula, either a whole cluster of stars or a single star is gradually formed from it, which at the beginning of its existence is still surrounded by a nebulous shell. If Kant believed that all the stars of the Milky Way were once formed at the same time, then Herschel was the first to suggest that the stars have different ages and the formation of stars continues continuously; it is happening in our time. This idea of Herschel was later forgotten, and the erroneous opinion about the simultaneous origin of all stars in the distant past dominated science for a long time. Only in the second half of the XNUMXth century, on the basis of the enormous successes of astronomy and, in particular, the work of Soviet scientists, was a difference in the age of stars established. Entire classes of stars have been studied, indisputably existing for a few million years, in contrast to other stars, whose age is determined by billions of years. Herschel's views on the nature of nebulae have been confirmed in general terms by modern science, which has established that gas and dust nebulae are widespread in our and other galaxies. The nature of these nebulae turned out to be even more complex than Herschel could have imagined. At the same time, even at the end of his life, Herschel was convinced that some nebulae were distant star systems, which would eventually be decomposed into separate stars. And in this he, like Kant and Lambert, turned out to be right. As already mentioned, in the 1783th century, the proper motion of many stars was discovered. In XNUMX, Herschel managed to convincingly prove by calculations that our solar system is also moving towards the constellation Hercules. But Herschel considered his main task to be the elucidation of the structure of the stellar system of the Milky Way, or our Galaxy, its shape and size. He did this for several decades. At that time, he had no data at his disposal either about the distances between the stars, or about their placement in space, or about their size and luminosity. Not having these data, Herschel assumed that all stars have the same luminosity and are evenly distributed in space, so that the distances between them are more or less the same, and the Sun is located near the center of the system. At the same time, Herschel did not know the phenomenon of absorption of light in world space and believed, in addition, that even the most distant stars of the Milky Way were accessible to his giant telescope. With this telescope, he counted the stars in different parts of the sky and tried to determine how far our star system extended in one direction or another. But Herschel's original assumptions were wrong. It is now known that stars differ from each other in luminosity and that they are unevenly distributed in the Galaxy. The galaxy is so large that even Herschel's giant telescope could not reach its borders. Therefore, he could not come to the correct conclusions about the shape of the Galaxy and the position of the Sun in it, and he greatly underestimated its size. Herschel also dealt with other issues of astronomy. By the way, he unraveled the complex nature of solar radiation and concluded that it includes light, heat and chemical rays (radiation that is not perceived by the eye). In other words, Herschel anticipated the discovery of rays that go beyond the normal solar spectrum - infrared and ultraviolet. Herschel began his scientific career as a modest amateur who had the opportunity to devote only his free time to astronomy. Teaching music has long been a source of livelihood for him. Only in old age did he acquire material opportunities for doing science. He combined the features of a real scientist and a wonderful person. Herschel was a skilled observer, an energetic researcher, a deep and purposeful thinker. At the very zenith of his fame, he remained a charming, kind and simple man, which is characteristic of deep and noble natures. Herschel managed to convey his passion for astronomy to his family and friends. His sister Carolina, as already mentioned, helped him a lot in scientific work. Having studied mathematics and astronomy under the guidance of her brother, Karolina independently processed his observations, prepared Herschel's catalogs of nebulae and star clusters for publication. Devoting a lot of time to observations, Carolina discovered 8 new comets and 14 nebulae. She was the first female researcher to be accepted on an equal footing into the cohort of English and European astronomers who elected her an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London and the Royal Irish Academy. In 1788, Herschel married an Englishwoman, Mary Pitt. Their son John, who was born in Slough in 1792, already in childhood showed remarkable abilities. He became one of the most famous English astronomers and physicists of the XNUMXth century. His popular book "Essays on Astronomy" was translated into Russian and played a big role in spreading astronomical knowledge in Russia. William Herschel died on August 25, 1822, and is buried in a small church near Windsor. Author: Samin D.K.
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