The Life and Works of J. C. Kapteyn: An Annotated Translation with Preface and Introduction by E. Robert Paul

106 Pages·1993·3.65 MB·English

by  E. Robert Paul (auth.)

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF J. C. KAPTEYN
THE LIFE AND WORKS
OF J. C. KAPTEYN
by
Henrietta Hertzsprung -Kapteyn
An Annotated Translation with Preface and
Introduction by
E. ROBERT PAUL
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Dickinson College,
Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013-2896, u.s.A.
Reprinted from Space Science Reviews, Volume 64, Nos. 1-2, 1993
Springer Science+Business Media, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-94-010-4858-3 ISBN 978-94-011-1940-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-1940-5
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993
Sof'tcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
Dedicated to the memory of
Vic Thoren
- mentor and friend
Robert Paul
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Xl
PREFACE xiii
INTRODUCTION: J. C. KAPTEYN AND MODERN ASTRONOMY XVll
CHAPTER 1. FAMILY LIFE
The Family Kapteyn
Siblings 6
Early Years 7
Student Years 12
The Family Kalshoven 14
CHAPTER 2. THE BEGINNING YEARS 16
Leiden 16
Groningen 20
CHAPTER 3. EARLY PROFESSIONAL YEARS 25
'The Cape Photographic Durchmusterung' 25
David Gill 31
The Astronomical Laboratory at Groningen 34
Simon Newcomb 40
Two Perfect Gentlemen 44
CHAPTER 4. UNIVERSITY LIFE 46
Life in Vries 46
The Professor 49
The Versatile Life 50
CHAPTER 5. INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMY 57
The 'Two Star Streams' and the Selected Areas 57
Home 66
America 68
The Great War 76
CHAPTER 6. LAST YEARS 82
Leiden Once Again 82
Last Years in Groningen 83
REFERENCES 91
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without the generous assistance of several archivists, librarians, and astronomers,
it would have been considerably more difficult to locate and examine manuscript
and source material upon which this annotated translation is based. I am thankful
to Dr Adriaan Blaauw of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory who critiqued my
translation and thus saved me from certain embarassment; Dr Blaauw also pro
vided me with invaluable information regarding the disposition and early history
of Kapteyn's Nachlass. I am grateful to Dr Steven 1. Dick senior historian at
the United States Naval Observatory for providing comments on the entire book.
Thanks are extended to the staff of Wellesley College (Massachusetts) for lending
me a copy of this rare book (indeed, only three libraries in the United States possess
an original edition), to the staffs of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory and the
University of Groningen for allowing me access to original source materials deal
ing with Kapteyn's life, and to the Huntington Library and the Mount Wilson and
Las Campanas Observatories (George Ellery Hale Papers) and Yerkes Observatory
(Kapteyn-Parkhurst Papers) for providing access to the extant personal correspon
dence upon which the original author based much of her work. My appreciation to
the American Institute of Physics (Bart Bok Interview) and to the staffs of the Unit
ed States Naval Observatory Library and the Boyd Lee Spahr Library of Dickinson
College for their help in locating a variety of esoteric sources. Finally, I am grateful
to my research assistants Ann-Marie Paul, Inez Pot, and Alan Beemer, to Kathleen
Paul for proof reading the entire book, and to Dickinson College for a Board of
Advisors faculty research grant that enabled me to complete this annotation.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1. Title Page of the Original
Fig. 2. J. e. Kapteyn with Henrietta Hertzsprung-Kapteyn
Fig. 3. J.e. Kapteyn with Elise Kalshoven
Fig. 4. Sir David Gill, ca. 1884
Fig. 5. Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, ca. 1914
Fig. 6. Astronomical Laboratory at Groningen
Fig. 7. Simon Newcomb, ca. 1900
Fig. 8. 'Star-streaming'
Fig. 9. George Ellery Hale, ca. 1910
Fig. 10. Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, ca. 1910
Fig. 11. J. e. Kapteyn, Karl Schwarzschild, and V. M. Slipher at
Mount Wilson Observatory, 1910
Fig. 12. Kapteyn Cottage, ca. 1910
Fig. 13. Kapteyn's 1920 Stellar System
Fig. 14. The 'Kapteyn Universe' (1922)
PREFACE
Not only does Henrietta Hertzsprung-Kapteyn's biography of her father reflect
on Kapteyn the man, but it also sketches - however briefly - on many technical
developments. The biography also suffers from - and in many ways is enriched by
- the emotional excesses of a loving daughter writing of her very famous father.
Consequently, the original biography is understandably excessively weak in its
critical assessment of Kapteyn. As a result, it would have been wholly inappropriate
to undertake a critical evaluation of this biography; the book was simply not written
to convey and evaluate the enormously complicated story of Kapteyn's scientific
work. For that subject one must turn elsewhere.1 Although where appropriate
I have provided a critical guide through the more technical material, the present
translation is fully annotated. Even so what justifies a translation of her biography?
I believe there are still two very important reasons.
In the absence of a full-scale, scientific biography, this biography not only
provides the best introduction we currently have of the life of a very influential
scientist, but an English translation opens-up to a much wider reading public many
of the enormously rich contributions, not only of Kapteyn the man but also of the
Dutch, to the emergence of astronomy as a major intellectual force in the world.
Without access to primary correspondence, however, it is impossible to reconstruct
historical and scientific events. In a scientific biography, this material is absolutely
necessary. Tragically, however, Kapteyn's Nachlass was completely destroyed
during the bombing of Rotterdam in May of 1940. Easily the largest collection
of Kapteyn's extant correspondence is presently preserved in the George Ellery
Hale Microfilm Collection, which contains several hundreds of letters between
Kapteyn and Hale.2 Additional correspondence between Kapteyn and various
astronomers, scientists, scholars, and others also exists in a variety of European and
American libraries and archives, principally the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory
at Groningen, the University of Groningen, and the Yerkes Observatory at Williams
Bay, Wisconsin.3
Perhaps equally important, this biography, both in the original Dutch and in
translation, reproduces many biographical and technical details from Kapteyn's
correspondence with numerous other scientists and scholars that have otherwise
become unavailable as a result of the destruction of Kapteyn 's N achlass. Therefore,
access to the Kapteyn biography, particularly in translation, becomes an archival
I The technical details relating to Kapteyn's scientific work within the larger astronomical and
scientific setting may be found in E. Robert Paul, The Milky Way Galaxy and Statistical Cosmology,
1890-1924 (New York: Cambridge University Press, (1993).
2 'George Ellery Hale Microfilm Collection' (Pasadena: Mt. Wilson and Las Campanas Obser
vatories and the Huntington Library). References to this collection are cited throughout as Hale.
3 References to these archives are cited throughout as K.A.L., Groningen, and Yerkes, respectively.
XlV PREFACE
J. C. KAPTEYN
ZIJN LEVEN EN WERKEN
DOOR H. HERTZSPRUNG-KAPTEYN
P. NOORDHOFF - 192 - GRONINGE
Fig. 1. Title page of Dutch Edition (1928).
treasure for future studies dealing with Kapteyn himself, as well as with the history
of both modem and Dutch astronomy, and George Ellery Hale, Mount Wilson, and
the rise of American astronomy. Because the disposition of the Kapteyn Nachlass
is of considerable importance, let me note the relevant events of its disappearance.
In a personal letter to me in May of 1988, Dr Adriaan Blaauw, former director of
the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory, rehearsed his understanding of the story:
Once I was told by P.J. van Rhijn, Kapteyn's successor at Groningen, that it had been the intention
PREFACE xv
Fig. 2. l. C. Kapteyn with Henrietta Hertzsprung-Kapteyn, ca. 1910.
of Willem de Sitter, together with the historian lohan Huizinga, to write the biography of Kapteyn.
To this purpose, according to van Rhijn, documents pertaining to Kapteyn's work and life were
collected and kept in a chest or trunk, and during the heavy bombing of Rotterdam, which marked
the beginning of the war with and occupation by Germany in May 1940, this was destroyed. As
you probably know, de Sitter died already about 1935 and Huizinga died during the war. Why the
collection of documents should have been in Rotterdam 1 have no idea. But 1 do seem to remember
that at the time 1 made my first acquaintance with the Leiden Observatory, a year or so before de
Sitter's death (I was allowed by de Sitter to live in the 'assistant's house' at the observatory and
observe with the astrograph), there was in the attic old instruments and the library in which was kept
a large chest with a collection of documents of an historical nature that puzzled me.4
4 Adriaan Blaauw to E. Robert Paul, 28 May 1988 (in author's personal file).