Wilhelm Anderson

Wilhelm Robert Karl Anderson (28 October [O.S. 16 October] 1880 – 26 March 1940) was a Russian-Estonian astrophysicist of Baltic German descent who studied the physical structure of the stars.

Wilhelm Anderson
Wilhelm Anderson in Tartu, c. 1930
Born	Wilhelm Robert Karl Anderson 28 October [O.S. 16 October] 1880 Minsk, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	March 26, 1940(1940-03-26) (aged 59) Meseritz-Obrawalde, Gau Mark Brandenburg, Deutsches Reich (present-day Międzyrzecz, Lubusz Voivodeship, Poland)
Nationality	Russian, Estonian, German
Alma mater	University of Kazan University of Tartu
Known for	Work on the white dwarf mass limit Stoner-Anderson equation
Scientific career
Fields	Astrophysics Astronomy
Institutions	University of Tartu
Thesis	Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona

Life

Wilhelm Anderson was born in Minsk (now in Belarus) into a Baltic German family.^[1] His younger brothers were the well known mathematician Oskar Anderson (1887–1960) and the folklorist Walter Anderson (1885–1962). Anderson spent some of his youth in Kazan, where his father Nikolai Anderson (1845–1905) was a university professor for Finno-Ugric languages.^[2]

He studied at the University of Kazan, where he graduated from the department of mathematics and science in 1909. Between 1910 and 1920, he worked as a physics teacher first in Samara and then from 1918 in Minsk.^[3] Together with his brother Walter Anderson, he moved to Tartu (Estonia) in 1920. At the University of Tartu, he first gained a Masters degree in Astronomy in 1923 and then a Doctorate in 1927.^[4] In 1934 he became a habilitation candidate at the university, and in 1936 he received an assistant professorship there, but early in 1939 he suffered a mental breakdown which left him unable to work.^[1] Like the majority of Baltic Germans, in January 1940 he was resettled to Germany,^[5] where he died in the Sanatorium of Meseritz-Obrawalde, shortly thereafter. It has been suggested that Anderson may have been a victim of the National Socialist "euthanasia" program.^[1]

Anderson is probably best known for his work on the mass limit for a white dwarf (one of the final evolutionary states of a star),^[6] extending Edmund Stoner's earlier work ^[7] by relativistic amplification (1929, Tartu),^[8][9][1] which was in turn further improved by Stoner.^[10][11] The Stoner-Anderson equation of state, a result of Anderson's correspondence with Stoner, is named after him.^[12] The white dwarf mass limit was further refined by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and is now known as the Chandrasekhar limit.^[13][10]

Work (selection)

• Über die Existenzmöglichkeit von kosmischem Staube in der Sonnenkorona. Zeitschrift für Physik 28, Berlin, 1924.^[14]
• Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. PhD Thesis published in six parts in Zeitschrift für Physik (in German): I. Z. Phys. 33, 1925,^[15] II. Z. Phys. 34, 1925,^[16] III. Z. Phys. 35, 1926,^[17] IV. Z. Phys. 37, 1926,^[18] V. Z. Phys. 38, 1926,^[19] VI. Z. Phys. 41, 1927,^[20]
• Gewöhnliche Materie und strahlende Energie als verschiedene "Phasen" eines und desselben Grundstoffes. Zeitschrift für Physik 54, Berlin, 1929.
• Über die Grenzdichte der Materie und der Energie. Zeitschrift für Physik 56, Berlin, 1929.^[9]

See also

• Ralph H. Fowler
• Ernst Öpik
• Yakov Frenkel

References

1. Piret Kuusk [in Estonian]; Indrek Martinson; Heino Eelsalu (1997), "Wilhelm Robert Karl Anderson", Tartu Observatooriumi Virtuaalne Muuseum, translated by Groote, S., retrieved 2018-10-18
2. "Формулярный списокь (service record): Николай Андерсон (Nikolai Anderson)", Oskar Nikolaevich Anderson (1907-1912) (in Russian), St. Petersburg: Archives of the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute of the Emperor Peter the Great in the Central State Historical Archives of St. Petersburg, pp. 9–18, retrieved 2018-10-19
3. Рафикова (Rafikova), Г. (G.); Ибрагимова (Ibrahimova), Ф. (F.) (2016). "Биографика Казанского университета: Андерсоны (Kazan University Biography: Anderson)". Гасырлар авазы – Эхо веков (in Russian). 2016 1/2.
4. "Matrikli Nr. 3300 (Matriculation Number 3300)". Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis 1918-1944 (in Estonian). Rahvusarhiiv (Estonian National Archives). Retrieved 19 October 2018.
5. "Saaga ERA.14.2-2.169:149", Saaga Digitalised archival sources (in Estonian), Tallinn: Rahvusarhiiv, the National Archives of Estonia, retrieved 2020-10-05
6. Blackman, E. (2006), "Giants of physics found white-dwarf mass limits", Nature, 440 (7081) (published 2006-03-09): 148, Bibcode:2006Natur.440..148B, doi:10.1038/440148d, PMID 16525442
7. Stoner, Edmund C. (1929). "The limiting density in white dwarf stars". Philosophical Magazine. Series 7. 7 (41): 63–70. doi:10.1080/14786440108564713.
8. Kuusk, P.; Martinson, I. (1997), "Tartu astrofüüsik Wilhelm Anderson", Akadeemia (in Estonian), 2: 358–375, retrieved 2018-10-18
9. Anderson, Wilhelm (1929). "Über die Grenzdichte der Materie und der Energie". Zeitschrift für Physik (in German). 56 (11–12): 851–856. Bibcode:1929ZPhy...56..851A. doi:10.1007/bf01340146. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 122576829.
10. Nauenberg, Michael (2008). "Edmund C. Stoner and the Discovery of the Maximum Mass of White Dwarfs" (PDF). Journal for the History of Astronomy. 39 (3): 297–312. Bibcode:2008JHA....39..297N. doi:10.1177/002182860803900302. S2CID 43792649.
11. Stoner, Edmund C. (1930). "The equilibrium of dense stars". Philosophical Magazine. Series 7. 9 (60): 944–963. doi:10.1080/14786443008565066.
12. Thomas, Edwin G. (2011). "Edmund Stoner and white dwarf stars". Philosophical Magazine. 91 (26): 3416–3422. Bibcode:2011PMag...91.3416T. doi:10.1080/14786435.2011.586377. S2CID 119780671.
13. Kip S. Thorne (1994). Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. W.W. Norton. Bibcode:1994bhtw.book.....T. ISBN 978-0-393-31276-8.
14. Anderson, Wilhelm (1924). "Über die Existenzmöglichkeit von kosmischem Staube in der Sonnenkorona". Zeitschrift für Physik (in German). 28 (1): 299–324. Bibcode:1924ZPhy...28..299A. doi:10.1007/bf01327186. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 121710847.
15. Anderson, Wilhelm (1925). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. I". Z. Phys. (in German). 33 (1): 273–301. Bibcode:1925ZPhy...33..273A. doi:10.1007/BF01328312. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 186240740.
16. Anderson, Wilhelm (1925). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. II". Z. Phys. (in German). 34 (1): 453–473. Bibcode:1925ZPhy...34..453A. doi:10.1007/BF01328489. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 186224186.
17. Anderson, Wilhelm (1926). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. III". Z. Phys. (in German). 35 (10): 757–775. Bibcode:1926ZPhy...35..757A. doi:10.1007/BF01386043. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 186227706.
18. Anderson, Wilhelm (1926). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. IV". Z. Phys. (in German). 37 (4–5): 342–366. Bibcode:1926ZPhy...37..342A. doi:10.1007/BF01397106. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 186235038.
19. Anderson, Wilhelm (1926). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. V". Z. Phys. (in German). 38 (6–7): 530–548. Bibcode:1926ZPhy...38..530A. doi:10.1007/BF01397172. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 186219710.
20. Anderson, Wilhelm (1927). "Die physikalische Natur der Sonnenkorona. VI". Z. Phys. (in German). 41 (1): 51–80. Bibcode:1927ZPhy...41...51A. doi:10.1007/BF01454763. ISSN 0044-3328. S2CID 120558675.

Further reading

• Hockey, Th.; Trimble, V.; Palmeri, J.; Bracher, K.; Jarrell, R.; Marché, J.D., eds. (2014), "Anderson, Wilhelm Robert Karl", Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (2nd ed.), Springer, pp. 78–80, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_9218, ISBN 9781441999160, retrieved 2013-06-12
• Hawking, S.W.; Israel, W., eds. (1989), Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, Bibcode:1989thyg.book.....H, ISBN 9780521379762
• Trimble, Virginia (2011), Chandrasekhar and the history of astronomy, Irvine, California: UC Irvine, Bibcode:2011ffbh.book...49T, ISBN 9789814374767
• Beddies, Thomas (2002), "Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde im Dritten Reich", in Hübener, Kristina (ed.), Brandenburgische Heil- und Pflegeanstalten in der NS-Zeit, Schriftenreihe zur Medizin-Geschichte des Landes Brandenburg (in German), Berlin: be.bra wissenschaft verlag, pp. 231–258, ISBN 978-3898093019

External links

• Publications by Wilhelm Anderson listed in Astrophysics Data System