Martin Schwarzschild

Martin Schwarzschild (May 31, 1912 – April 10, 1997) was a German-born American astrophysicist. He was the son of famed German physicist Karl Schwarzschild and the nephew of the Swiss astrophysicist Robert Emden.

Biography

Schwarzschild was born in Potsdam into a distinguished German Jewish academic family. In line with a request in his father's will, his family moved to Göttingen in 1916. Schwarzschild studied at the University of Göttingen and took his doctoral examination in December 1936. He left Germany in 1936 for Norway and then the United States. Schwarzschild served in the US army intelligence. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star for his wartime service. After returning to the US, he married fellow astronomer Barbara Cherry.^[2] In 1947, Martin Schwarzschild joined his lifelong friend, Lyman Spitzer at Princeton University. Spitzer died 10 days before Schwarzschild.

Schwarzschild's work in the fields of stellar structure and stellar evolution led to improved understanding of pulsating stars, differential solar rotation, post-main sequence evolutionary tracks on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (including how stars become red giants), hydrogen shell sources, the helium flash, and the ages of star clusters. Much of this was done with R. Härm. Schwarzschild’s 1958 book Structure and Evolution of the Stars taught a generation of astrophysicists how to apply electronic computers to the computation of stellar models.

In the 1950s and ’60s he headed the Stratoscope projects, which took instrumented balloons to unprecedented heights. The first Stratoscope produced high resolution images of solar granules and sunspots, confirming the existence of convection in the solar atmosphere, and the second obtained infrared spectra of planets, red giant stars, and the nuclei of galaxies. In his later years he made significant contributions toward understanding the dynamics of elliptical galaxies. Schwarzschild was renowned as a teacher and held major leadership positions in several scientific societies.

In the 1980s, Schwarzschild applied his numerical skills to building models for triaxial galaxies. ^[3]

Dr. Schwarzschild was the Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Princeton University, where he spent most of his professional life.^[4]

Honors

Awards

• Karl Schwarzschild Medal (1959)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1960)^[5]
• Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1960)^[6]
• Eddington Medal (1963)
• Bruce Medal (1965)^[7]
• Rittenhouse Medal (1966)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1969)^[8]
• Brouwer Award (1992)
• Balzan Prize (1994, with Fred Hoyle)
• National Medal of Science (1997)

Named after him

• Asteroid 4463 Marschwarzschild

See also

• Stratoscope
• Perhapsatron
• Betelgeuse

References

External links

• Published papers of Martin Schwarzschild on SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System
• D. Merritt, Martin Schwarzschild's Contributions to Galaxy Dynamics
• Oral history interview with Martin Schwarzschild. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Schwarzschild describes his early training in automatic computing when he assumed the position of director of the Watson Scientific Computation Laboratory at Columbia University upon the resignation of Wallace Eckert. Schwarzschild describes the computational research he did there on stellar models, then turns to his experience during World War II at Aberdeen Proving Ground, mentioning work of John von Neumann and other scientific consultants on the design of new automatic calculating equipment. Schwarzschild answers questions about the relationship between R. H. Kent and von Neumann. His final topic is the work during the 1950s he undertook on stellar interiors using the Institute for Advanced Study computer. He describes his experiences trying to use the computer for large scientific purposes, and recalls the reception of his computational research by the professional astronomy journals.