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Born Prague, (Czech Republic), 26 October 1841
Died Vienna, (Austria), 26 December 1886
Though trained as a physician, Theodor von Oppolzer excelled at celestial mechanics and published a monumental volume on the elements of all solar and lunar eclipses, visible from 1207 BCE to 2163. Oppolzer’s father, Johann von Oppolzer, was a well-known physician, specialist on internal diseases, and professor of medicine at the Universities of Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna. Oppolzer received a private education (1851–1859) before he entered the Piaristen-Gymnasium in Vienna, from which he graduated summa cum laude. While his teachers encouraged his abilities in mathematics and science, Oppolzer fulfilled his father’s wish that he study medicine at the University of Vienna, where he received his medical degree in 1865. Yet, it seems that he never wanted to work as a physician. In 1865, Oppolzer married Coelestine Mautner von Markhof; the couple had six...
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Selected References
Carton, Wilhelm H. C. (1989). “Oppolzer’s Great Canon of Eclipses.” Sky & Telescope 78, no. 5: 475–478.
Ferrari d’Occhieppo, Konradin (1974). “Oppolzer, Theodor Ritter von.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 10, pp. 218–220. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Firneis, M. G. (1987). “Leben und Wirken des Theodor Ritter von Oppolzer.” In Geodätische Arbeiten Österreichs für die Internationale Erdmessung, n.s., Vol. 5: 18–36.
Oppolzer, Theodor Ritter von (1887). Canon der Finsternisse. Denkschriften, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaften Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vol. 52. Vienna. (Reprint, New York: Dover, 1962.) (Translated by Owen Gingerich.)
Weiss, Edmund (1887). “Nekrolog über Theodor von Oppolzer.” Astronomische Nachrichten 116: 95–96.
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Schnell, A. (2014). von Oppolzer, Theodor Ritter. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1039
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