Preface
xi
scientists and those from other ‘defeated’ countries from international scientific organizations. Furthermore, not much later, some of his work was shown
to be seriously flawed due to the neglect of interstellar absorption of light, and
his model for the Sidereal System was replaced by American Harlow Shapley’s
much larger model based on the distribution of globular clusters. This in spite
of Kapteyn’s earlier work that provided strong evidence for the presence (and
resulted in a reasonable, although fortuitous, determination of the amount)
of interstellar absorption, which he himself and other astronomers had, as we
now know incorrectly, renounced a few years ago on the basis of the work by
the same Harlow Shapley.
Another important reason would be the lack of a comprehensive biography of Kapteyn. It is true that in 1928 his daughter Henriette Hertzsprung–
Kapteyn published a biography [1], but this was by a loving daughter, writing
about her famous father with little knowledge of astronomy. A plan to write
an authoritative Life by Kapteyn’s student Willem de Sitter and well-known
historian Johan Huizinga had come to naught. For more than 90 years since
Kapteyn’s death, no further account of his life and work has been written. The
book by Henriette Hertzsprung–Kapteyn has been translated into English
[3] by Erich Robert Paul, but the quality of this translation has been heavily
criticized (Appendix B in [4]). 2
The present book aims at restoring the appreciation of Kapteyn as the
pioneer of Galactic astronomy, a field that attracts much attention these days
throught the GAIA mission. It is based on a comprehensive academic version
that I published in 2014 in the Springer Astrophysics and Space Science
Library, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn; Born investigator of the heavens [5]. The
current volume aims at a wider audience with a general interest in science. It
has been published first in Dutch [6] and this is an English translation by the
author.
In writing this book, I have attempted to put developments and contributions by Kapteyn in the context of contemporary astronomy. So, in Chap. 3, I
have summarized the state of astronomy around 1875, the year that Kapteyn
entered the field when he was appointed on the staff of the ‘Sterrewacht’
Leiden. At other places, where appropriate, I have summarized what was
known of the subject at the time.
This volume has a sequel in a biography of Kapteyn’s most famous student,
Jan Hendrik Oort, again first as a scientific biography [7], and followed up
by a version for a more general public, Master of the Galactic astronomy; a
biography of Jan Hendrik Oort, which has been published at the same time as
this volume in the series Springer Biographies [8].
2 An improved translation by myself has been posted on my special Kapteyn Website (see below).
xi
scientists and those from other ‘defeated’ countries from international scientific organizations. Furthermore, not much later, some of his work was shown
to be seriously flawed due to the neglect of interstellar absorption of light, and
his model for the Sidereal System was replaced by American Harlow Shapley’s
much larger model based on the distribution of globular clusters. This in spite
of Kapteyn’s earlier work that provided strong evidence for the presence (and
resulted in a reasonable, although fortuitous, determination of the amount)
of interstellar absorption, which he himself and other astronomers had, as we
now know incorrectly, renounced a few years ago on the basis of the work by
the same Harlow Shapley.
Another important reason would be the lack of a comprehensive biography of Kapteyn. It is true that in 1928 his daughter Henriette Hertzsprung–
Kapteyn published a biography [1], but this was by a loving daughter, writing
about her famous father with little knowledge of astronomy. A plan to write
an authoritative Life by Kapteyn’s student Willem de Sitter and well-known
historian Johan Huizinga had come to naught. For more than 90 years since
Kapteyn’s death, no further account of his life and work has been written. The
book by Henriette Hertzsprung–Kapteyn has been translated into English
[3] by Erich Robert Paul, but the quality of this translation has been heavily
criticized (Appendix B in [4]). 2
The present book aims at restoring the appreciation of Kapteyn as the
pioneer of Galactic astronomy, a field that attracts much attention these days
throught the GAIA mission. It is based on a comprehensive academic version
that I published in 2014 in the Springer Astrophysics and Space Science
Library, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn; Born investigator of the heavens [5]. The
current volume aims at a wider audience with a general interest in science. It
has been published first in Dutch [6] and this is an English translation by the
author.
In writing this book, I have attempted to put developments and contributions by Kapteyn in the context of contemporary astronomy. So, in Chap. 3, I
have summarized the state of astronomy around 1875, the year that Kapteyn
entered the field when he was appointed on the staff of the ‘Sterrewacht’
Leiden. At other places, where appropriate, I have summarized what was
known of the subject at the time.
This volume has a sequel in a biography of Kapteyn’s most famous student,
Jan Hendrik Oort, again first as a scientific biography [7], and followed up
by a version for a more general public, Master of the Galactic astronomy; a
biography of Jan Hendrik Oort, which has been published at the same time as
this volume in the series Springer Biographies [8].
2 An improved translation by myself has been posted on my special Kapteyn Website (see below).