10.4 De Sitter and Leiden
219
Fig. 10.9 Antonie Pannekoek. This picture comes from the Album Amicorum, presented
to H.G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen on the occasion of his retirement as professor of
astronomy and director of the Sterrewacht Leiden in 1908 [47]
the Carte du Ciel, in which American observatories did not participate, and
this happened under rigid regimes and guidelines. In Leiden, when Hendricus van de Sande Bakhuyzen took up his post as professor in 1872, he had
chosen to pursue positional astronomy with vigor and not to become involved
in emerging techniques such as photography and spectroscopy. Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) (see Fig. 10.9), who had obtained his PhD in Leiden
in 1902, wrote in his memoirs [99] on conservatism at the Sterrewacht: ‘In
this environment, where everything lived in the tradition of twenty and thirty
years earlier, where people were always performing calculations and nothing
ever came of it, where the new paths of astronomy were scarcely appreciated,
all the enthusiasm had to freeze out over time.’ He describes how everyone
gathered in the director’s office on Monday morning, ‘and I realized how after
a week everything was still basically the same, only dribbled along a little bit.
Then I always smelt the air of catacombs around me of deadly stiffness and
boredom’.
219
Fig. 10.9 Antonie Pannekoek. This picture comes from the Album Amicorum, presented
to H.G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen on the occasion of his retirement as professor of
astronomy and director of the Sterrewacht Leiden in 1908 [47]
the Carte du Ciel, in which American observatories did not participate, and
this happened under rigid regimes and guidelines. In Leiden, when Hendricus van de Sande Bakhuyzen took up his post as professor in 1872, he had
chosen to pursue positional astronomy with vigor and not to become involved
in emerging techniques such as photography and spectroscopy. Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) (see Fig. 10.9), who had obtained his PhD in Leiden
in 1902, wrote in his memoirs [99] on conservatism at the Sterrewacht: ‘In
this environment, where everything lived in the tradition of twenty and thirty
years earlier, where people were always performing calculations and nothing
ever came of it, where the new paths of astronomy were scarcely appreciated,
all the enthusiasm had to freeze out over time.’ He describes how everyone
gathered in the director’s office on Monday morning, ‘and I realized how after
a week everything was still basically the same, only dribbled along a little bit.
Then I always smelt the air of catacombs around me of deadly stiffness and
boredom’.