Schwarzschild, Karl

Born Oct. 9,1873, in Frankfurt am Main; died May 11, 1916, in Potsdam. German astronomer. Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1912).

From 1901, Schwarzschild was a professor at the University of Göttingen and director of the university’s observatory. Beginning in 1909, he was director of the astrophysical observatory in Potsdam. In 1912 he became a professor at the University of Berlin.

Schwarzschild worked out the methodology of photographic stellar photometry and compiled a catalog that contained the photographic determinations of the brightnesses of 3,500 stars. A number of his studies were devoted to the theoretical investigation of various problems of stellar astronomy and astrophysics. Schwarzschild established the ellipsoidal distribution of stellar velocities and gave a general solution of the integral equations of stellar statistics. He created the theory of the radiative equilibrium of stellar atmospheres and studied binary and variable stars, comets, and problems of quantum mechanics and relativity theory as applied to astronomy. Schwarzschild is also known for his studies in optics.