Biographical Memoirs Volume 61 (1992) / Chapter Skim
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Otto Struve
Otto Struve
Pages 350-387
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From page 351... ...
eighteen chilctren.5 Of the six Struves who pursued a career in astronomy,6 four won the prestigious Gold Mecial of the Royal Astronomical Society: great-grandfather Wilhelm in IS26, grancIfather Otto Wilhelm in TS50, uncle Hermann in 1903, and our Otto in 1944. Such a level of recognition in astronomy 351
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From page 352... ...
In the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, there are a few pictures relating to Struve's early years. One shows a corner of the house in which he was born, looking somewhat like Leo Tolstoy's house at Yasnaya Polyana.
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From page 353... ...
The Tsar hacI abdicated in March 1917, the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in October-November of that year, and the country was embroiled in a civil war. Struve enlisted in the White Russian Army of General Anton Denikin in June 1919, a move he later called "the most self-sacrificing act of my life.''l2 He acicis: "I have no doubt that the time will come when the Russian people will recognize that patriotism was not the exclusive privilege of those who fought on the 1 1 1 ~ ~ winning side." Struve was wounclecl in action in July ]
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From page 354... ...
Enter fate. Edwin Frost, director of Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, had written to Struve.
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From page 355... ...
that he had heard of the job offer from Guthnick.26 On April 12, Struve wrote a curious letter to Frost in English words but with entirely German syntax, in which he thanked Frost again in advance for the job offer.27 Struve took the letter to the YMCA to make sure it saicl what he thought it did. There he met a man named Areson,
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From page 356... ...
He arrived in New York on October 7, 1921.29 Three clays later he arrived in Williams Bay,30 wearing not the tattered Russian officer's uniform he had hacl on the ship, but an outfit he had bought at a Dea market in New York, consisting of orange shoes, purple trousers, and a green jacket.~5 3~ YE RKE S YEARS Struve was to spenct the next twenty-nine years associated with Yerkes Observatory. He obtained his Ph.D.
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From page 357... ...
Struve became an American citizen in 1927.~3 Otto's mother came by ship to the United States in early 1925. As Frost tells it: When I realized that her steamer would be crossing the line of totality of the eclipse of January 24, 1925, I prepared quite an elaborate document appointing her commissioner on the high seas of the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago.
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From page 358... ...
Struve's scientific publications begin in 1923. The previous autumn the American Astronomical Society had met at Yerkes Observatory.
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From page 359... ...
One of Struve's early and ongoing interests was interstellar calcium, whose presence was known from the absorption lines in the spectra of many stars. It is now well known that most stellar atmospheres have about the same composition, but that the presence or absence of certain spectral lines is due to the pressure ant!
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From page 360... ...
Because stellar spectral lines contain information on abunciance, rotation, and the Stark effect, one must try to separate their relative contributions. Struve states that the rotational dispersion can be separated statistically in short-period binaries.
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From page 361... ...
One of Struve's most important accomplishments was the organization of the construction of McDonald Observatory in west Texas. This has been described in some detail by Evans ancl Mu~holland in their book Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory.45 The funds for the observatory came from the estate of a wealthy Texas banker, W
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From page 362... ...
unstable close binaries whose spectra were complicatec! by streams of gas, such as 27 Canis Majoris ant!
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From page 363... ...
Until recently, it could only be agreed upon that the eclipsing body was either a semitransparent shell or a flat, opaque disk that covers half of the surface of the primary. Recent data obtained with the International Ultraviolet Explorer allow us to update the Kuiper-Stromgren-Struve model: the eclipsing body is a star of temperature 10,000 Kelvin, about four times the size of the sun.
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From page 364... ...
students thus: "It was unforgivable in his eyes for anyone to fall short of full commitment."52 In spite of Struve's successes in-buiIcling McDonald ant! pushing astrophysics ahead, a case couict be made that his greatest accomplishment was making the Yerkes Observatory staff the brain trust it was in the 1930s ant!
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From page 365... ...
, which runs Kitt Peak National Observatory. Otto Struve served on the original organizing committee for building KPNo.64 After the war, science worIclwicle underwent a major phase of expansion that has continued until tociay.
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From page 366... ...
Struve's icleal was George Ellery Hale (~868-1938) , the founder of Yerkes Observatory, then of Mount Wilson Observatory.66 Hale can be seen looking over Struve's shouIcler in the photograph accompanying this article.
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From page 367... ...
He worked closely with postdoctoral fellow Su-Shu Huang, Argentinian astronomer-in-exile forge Sahacie, anti assistant Velta Zebergs. During the 1950s Struve clevotect a great clear of energy to the study of ,B Canis Majoris (or ,8 Cephei)
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From page 368... ...
Having server! as a vice president of the International Astronomical Union from 1946 to 1952, Struve was honorect with election to its presidency in 1952 at the Rome assembly.
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From page 369... ...
Over the course of a long time he was in the service of the American imperialists in the capacity of director of the Yerkes Observatory, near Chicago.74 In the book Struve was also taken to task for his article "Freedom of Thought in Astronomy," publisher!
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From page 370... ...
We list below Struve's academic awards and honorary degrees. 1944 Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society 1948 Bruce Gold Medal, Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1950 Draper Medal, National Academy of Sciences 1950 Decoration: Chevalier, Order of the Crown, Belgium 1954 Rittenhouse Medal 1954 1955 1955 Janssen Medaille, Societe Astronomique de France Medaille Jules Cesar Janssen, French Academy of Sciences G
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From page 371... ...
It has been said by a number of independent sources that he was walleyed because of spending too much time squinting into a microscope eyepiece measuring spectra, which ruined his binocular vision. His physical appearance and clemeanor were such that people were intimidated by him, although he diet not try to be intimidating.
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From page 372... ...
"The fact is that mass transfer in interacting binaries is behind all the work now going on in such objects as novae, recurrent novae, and by generalization to more massive objects to the infall of material into white dwarfs, into black holes, etc."85 Struve and other pioneers in this field! gave us "information that was not merely gravitational but also entered the region of atomic physics." Another whole field that this touches on therefore is the nature of the spectroscopic peculiarities of matter in rapid motion at relatively low densities travelling from one star to another.
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From page 373... ...
the establishment of McDonald Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory, ant! the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
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From page 374... ...
, the Yerkes Observatory archives, and the Gerard Kuiper archives at the University of Arizona.
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From page 375... ...
Frost, April 11, 1921, Yerkes Observatory Archives.
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From page 376... ...
Frost to Otto Struve, March 2, 1921, Bancroft Library, ID number 67/135. A copy exists in the Yerkes Observatory Archives.
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From page 377... ...
40. Materials pertaining to the Astronomers Relief Committee were obtained from the Yerkes Observatory Archives.
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From page 378... ...
A Milne, "On the Award of the Gold Medal to Professor Otto Struve, Director of the Yerkes and McDonald Observatories," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 194 (1944)
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From page 379... ...
DeVorkin, "The Maintenance of a Scientific Institution: Otto Struve, the Yerkes Observatory, and Its Optical Bureau during the Second World War," Minerva 18 (Winter 1980~:595-623.
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From page 380... ...
. having betrayed his native land, he went abroad and settled in the USA." Given the temporal ordering of these three clauses, "having betrayed his native land" came before his emigration, and so it must refer to Struve's activity as an officer in the White Russian Army.
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From page 381... ...
65: 163-99. An unusual spectroscopic binary (27 Canis Majoris)
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From page 382... ...
69:7-33. The Stark effect in stellar spectra.
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From page 383... ...
The 150-foot nebular spectrograph of the McDonald Observatory. Astrophys.
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From page 384... ...
Linke. Observations made with the nebular spectrograph of the McDonald Observatory.
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From page 385... ...
1951 The analysis of stellar spectra. In Astrophysics: A Topical Symposium Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Yerkes Observatory and a
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From page 386... ...
16:379-81. "The royal road to success": Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957~.
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From page 387... ...
The 140-foot radio telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
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