Biographical Memoirs Volume 76 (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Willem Jacob Luyten
Willem Jacob Luyten
Pages 198-217
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Strand, en c! Peter van cle Kamp.
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Although he became interested in many lines of astronomical research, Luyten's lifelong interest centered on the properties of the common nearby stars en c! especially their proper motions.
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absolute magnitucles with trigonometric parallax. lust as the parallax fixes the absolute magnitude exactly, so do proper motions roughly determine it.
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His Dutch predecessors especially Kapteyn, van Rhijn, and his Danish mentor at Leiden, Ejnar Hertzsprung picked up about where Sir William Herschel left off a century earlier in the study of the stellar makeup of the Milky Way. The luminosity function concept was well known by the time Luyten enterer!
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Altogether 94,263 stars with significant proper motions were founcI. Most of these stars were brighter than magnitude 14.5 en c!
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even the Works Progress Administration, along with a number of private philanthropic sources. The Bruce Proper Motion Survey lee!
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It also proviclec! an icleal first epoch for the measure of proper motions.
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For his calibration sample Luyten user! 610 stars with proper motions in excess of 0.5 arc seconds per year, en c!
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comparer! stellar luminosities from Mount Wilson spectral classifications en c!
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can interpolate larger ones closely. At the completion of the information on motions in each fielcI, he wouic!
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Peter van cle Kamp as well.) Until his retirement in 1967, he regularly taught introcluctory astronomy, as well as some acivancec!
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At issue was a group of seven F-type stars near the North Galactic Pole that simple Poisson statistics strongly suggester! must be physically associated.
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If we clo not penalize false statements macle in error, we open up the way for false statements macle by intention." This comment became his touchstone for professional behavior, en c! in his own way he applier!
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Mona Coatzee is now on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, Ann Dieperink was a Fulbright scholar en c! is a practicing attorney, and James Luyten earned a Ph.D.
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scientist he was. They are likely to agree with Shakespeare that "he was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." MY PRIMARY SOURCE for this memoir was Willem Luyten's own autobiography (1987~.
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16:464. 1934 Report on the state of the Bruce Proper Motion Survey.
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1967 A comparison between the Bruce, Palomar Schmidt, and Lowell proper motions.
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1986 Data and proper motions for 250,000 faint stars on magnetic tape. 1987 My First 72 Years of Astronomical Research: Reminiscences of an Astronomical Curmudgeon, Revealing the Presence of Human Nature in Science.
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