Oppenheim, Samuel

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OPPENHEIM, SAMUEL

(b. Braunsberg, Moravia [now Brus̆perk, Czechoslovakia], 19 November 1857; d. Vienna, Austria, 15 August 1928)

astronomy.

After leaving the Gymnasium at Teschen, Austrian Silesia, Oppenheim began his studies of mathematics, physics, and astronomy in 1875 at the University of Vienna. His teachers included Boltzmann, Petzval, Stefan, and Weiss. In 1878 he had to undergo a year of military service. He obtained his teaching diploma in mathematics and physics in 1880 and was employed as a teacher at the Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna. From 1883 onward, he also worked at the university observatory. After receiving the Ph.D., he became assistant astronomer and in 1889 lecturer in astronomy. From 1888 he worked for some time as associate astronomer at Kuffner’s private observatory at Ottakring, then a suburb of Vienna. In order to have a safe economic basis, Oppenheim again accepted employment as a teacher in secondary schools: in Vienna (1891), Amau, Bohemia (1896), and Karolinenthal, near Prague (1899). He also gave lectures in astronomy at Charles University, where in 1902 he became associate professor. In 1911 he was finally called to Vienna and appointed full professor at the university. Oppenheim became a member of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in 1889 and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1920.

The major part of Oppenheim’s work was devoted to theoretical astronomy. He studied the influence of rotation on the shape of heavenly bodies, and he published valuable contributions to the three-body and n-body problem and to the theory of gravitation. A considerable part of his work dealt with the motions of the stars and with stellar statistics. Oppenheim also performed many numerical calculations of the orbits of comets and minor planets, and he also promoted astrophysics by a great number of visual and photographic observations. After 1917 he was editor of the astronomy volumes of the Encyklopädie der Mathe-matischen Wissenschaften.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Oppenheim’s works include “Eine neue Integration der Differential-Gleichungen der Plane-tenbewegung,” inSitzungsherichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien,87 (1883); “Rotation und Präcession eines flüssigen Sphäroids” ibid.,92 (1885); “Eine Gleichung, deren Wurzeln die mittleren Bewegungen imn-Körperproblem sind,” in Publikationen der von Kuffnerschen Sternwarte,1 (1889); “Bahnbestimmung des Kometen 1846,” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien,99 (1890); “Bahnbestimmung des Planeten (290) Bruna,” ibid.,100 (1891); and “Ausmessung des Sternhaufens G.C. Nr. 1166,” in Publikationen der von Kuffnerschen Sternwarte, 3 (1894).

See also “Bestimmung der Kräfte, durch welche die Bewegung dreier Körper in gegebenen Curven erzeugt werden,” ibid., 3 (1894); Zur Lehre von den Bewegungen der Doppelsterne (Vienna, 1894); Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit der Gravitation (Vienna, 1895); “Specielle periodische Lösungen im Problem der drei Körper,” in Publikationen der von Kuffnerschen Sternwarte,4 (1896); Kritik des Newton’schen Gravitationsgesetzes (Prague, 1903); “Bestimmung der Periode einer periodischen Erscheinung nebst Anwendung auf die Theorie des Erdmagnetismus,” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien,118 (1909); “Die Eigenbewegungen der Fixsterne,” in Denkschriften der Akademie der Wissenschaften,87 (1912); 92 (1916); 93 (1917); 97 (1921); “Zur Frage nach der Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit der Gravitation,” in Annalen der Physik,53 (1917); “Theorie der Gleichgewichtsfiguren der HimmelsKörper,” in Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1919); and Das astronomische Weltbild im Wandel der Zeit (Leipzig, 1920).

Other works include “Die scheinbare Verteilung der Sterne,” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien,130 (1921); “Statistische Untersuchungen über die Bewegung der kleinen Planeten,” in Denkschriften der Akademie der Wissenschaften,97 (1921); Weltuntergang in Sage und Wissenschaft (1921), written with K. Ziegler; Kometen (Vienna, 1922); “Perioden der Sonnenflecken,” in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien,137 (1928). Besides, there are about thirty papers that are mainly concerned with the determination of orbits of planets, comets, stellar statistics and proper motions, and with theoretical mechanics; these papers are published in the Astronomische Nachrichten,113 (1886), to 232 (1928), and in other periodicals.

II. Secondary Literature. See W. E. Bernheimer, in Beiträge zur Geophysik,20 (1928), in Forschungen und Fortschritte,4 (1928), and in Nature,122 (London, 1928), 657; K. Graff, in Almanach. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften,79 (1929), 183-186; J. Rheden, in Astronomische Nachrichten,233 (1928), 295; C. Wirtz, in Vierteljahrsschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft,64 (1929), 20-30, with a portrait of Oppenheim; and Poggendorff, vols. III, 988; IV, 1096-1097; V, 923; VI, 1913.

Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo