Starting with the Sun and Edith Müller

Abstract

Fifty years ago, I first met Dr. Edith Müller when she was an Assistant at the Eidgenössische Sternwarte (Observatory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) at Zürich, and I was one of the students of Mathematics fascinated by astronomy. From her (originally a mathematician), from Dr. Helmut Müller (no relation of hers; astronomer and geodesist) and from Bernhard Beck (later meteorologist) I was introduced to the regular counting of sunspots and the art of observing, with an old-fashioned spectrohelioscope, solar prominences and flares. The majority of the observatory staff was a very cheerful group, but was not allowed to show that freely during the work. It was, therefore, all the more essential to use occasional good opportunities for comfortable or merry reunions. I shall never forget the farewell party for Edith, when she was about to leave for Cambridge (in 1950). The cause was moving, yet the feast turned quite lively. We had prepared, as a present, a book of photos and verses, and agreed that each one of us should also contribute a tuft of hair, to be fastened somehow to those pages. But then we asked the same sacrifice from Edith, as a memorial for us. The time was obviously most unfavorable for that, in regard to her especially festive hair dress for that day.