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Hell, Maximilian

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Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers

Alternate Name

Höll, Miksa

BornSelmecbánya (Bánska Stiavnica, Slovakia), 15 May 1720

DiedVienna (Austria), 14 April 1792

Maximilian Hell (Höll) was a Hungarian astronomer whose reputation was tarnished because of his observations of the transit of Venus. He was the son of Máté Kornél Hell, a well-known mathematician and mine technician, and Julianna Viktória Staindl. Hell entered the Society of Jesus in 1738 and was sent to Vienna to study philosophy at the university. From 1744 he studied mathematics and astronomy and served as an assistant in the Jesuits’ observatory of Vienna. Hell spent 1 year in Lőcse (Levoca, now Slovakia) as a teacher, and in 1747 he returned to Vienna to study theology. He was ordained priest in 1752, then became the professor of mathematics in Kolozsvár (Klausenburg, now Cluj-Napoca in Romania). In 1755 Hell was appointed professor of mechanics at the university and director of the new observatory in Vienna.

Although he lived in Vienna, Hell had close...

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Selected References

  • Ashbrook, Joseph (1984). “Father Hell’s Reputation.” In The Astronomical Scrapbook, edited by Leif J. Robinson, pp. 218–221. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Publishing Corp.

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  • Newcomb, Simon (1883). “On Hell’s Alleged Falsification of His Observations of the Transit of Venus in 1769.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 43: 371–381.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Konkoly Observatory, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    László Szabados

Authors
  1. László Szabados
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Correspondence to László Szabados .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

    Thomas Hockey

  2. University of California, Irvine School of Physical Sciences, Irvine, CA, USA

    Virginia Trimble

  3. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Thomas R. Williams

  4. Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, USA

    Katherine Bracher

  5. York Univesity, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Richard A. Jarrell

  6. University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Jordan D. Marché II

  7. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    JoAnn Palmeri

  8. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Daniel W. E. Green

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Szabados, L. (2014). Hell, Maximilian. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_640

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