Marcel Minnaert

Marcel Gilles Jozef Minnaert (February 12 1893October 261970) was a Belgian astronomer.

He obtained a PhD in biology at Ghent University in 1914.

He was a supporter of the Flemish movement during World War I and endorsed the replacement of French by Dutch during the German occupation of Belgium. Because of this, he was forced to flee Belgium after the end of the war.

In 1918, he found a position at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, initially to do photometric research. In Utrecht, he became interested in astronomy, and he became a pioneer of solar research. He specialized in spectroscopy and the study of stellar atmospheres.

In 1937, he was appointed director of the stellar observatory Sonnenborgh in Utrecht and full professor in astronomy at the university. In 1940, he published his famous Utrecht Atlas of the solar spectrum. In 1941, he invented the Minnaert function, which is used in optical measurements of celestial bodies.

During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, he was imprisoned by the Germans because of his left-wing, anti-fascist sympathies. During his incarceration, he taught physics and astronomy to his fellow prisoners.

In 1934, asteroid 1670 Minnaert was named after him. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1947 and the Bruce Medal in 1951. The Minnaert crater on the moon was named after him in 1970 and in 1998, Utrecht University named the Minnaert building (http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/minnaert/) at the Uithof campus after him.

One of his interests was the effects of the atmosphere on light and images. He wrote two books on the subject:

  • Light and Color in the Outdoors, Springer, 1993, ISBN 0-387-97935-2, and 3-540-97935-2, 0-387-94413-3 (originally published in Dutch in 1974 as De natuurkunde van 't vrije veld. Licht en kleur in het landschap.)
  • The Nature of Light and Color in the Open Air, Dover, 1954, ISBN 0-486-20196-1

External links

References

  • Molenaar, Leo. De rok van het universum: Marcel Minnaert, astrofysicus 1893–1970 Balans, Amsterdam, 2003 [in Dutch]. ISBN 9050186033
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