Abstract
PROF. LUDWIG WILHELM EMIL ERNST BECKER, for forty-two years occupant of the regius chair of astronomy in the University of Glasgow, died at Merano in Italy on November 11, 1947. Becker was born at Wesel in Germany in 1860 and educated at the University of Bonn where, in due course, he took his Ph.D. degree. In 1885, after two years as an assistant in the Berlin Observatory, he was recommended to the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who owned a large private observatory at Dunecht, near Aberdeen, in professional charge, at the time, of Dr. R. Copeland. In the autumn of 1888 Lord Crawford presented the whole of his magnificent equipment, including his astronomical library of 15,000 volumes, to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury for a new Royal Observatory. A site on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh was selected in 1889 ; Becker was included on the staff, with Copeland as Astronomer Royal. Four years later, Becker was appointed to the regius professorship of astronomy at Glasgow, occupying the chair until his retirement in 1935. The University Observatory half a century ago was well equipped for contemporary needs, and in his earlier years he extended considerably its instrumental resources.
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SMART, W. Prof. Ludwig Becker. Nature 161, 161 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161161a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161161a0