Paul Herget
Paul Herget (1908–1981) was an American astronomer.[1]
Herget taught astronomy at the University of Cincinnati. He was a pioneer in the use of machine methods, and eventually digital computers, in the solving of scientific and specifically astronomical problems (for example, in the calculation of ephemeris tables for minor planets). Asteroid 1751 Herget is named after him.
During World War II he applied these same talents to the war effort, helping to locate U-boats by means of the application of spherical trigonometry.
Herget established the Minor Planet Center at the university after the war in 1947. He was also named director of the Cincinnati Observatory. The Minor Planet Center was eventually relocated in 1978 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it still operates.
References
- ↑ Seidelmann, P. K. (January 1982). "Paul Herget". Physics Today 35 (1): 86–87. Bibcode:1982PhT....35a..86S. doi:10.1063/1.2890023.
External links
- Paul Herget at Columbia University Computing History
- Lecture by Paul Herget on the history of the Cincinnati Observatory
- Paul Herget 1908 - 1981. A Biographical Memoir by Donald E. Ostertbrock and P. Kenneth Seidelmann National Academy of Sciences)
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