Abstract
Death of Johann Tobias Burg On November 25, 1834, Johann Tobias Burg, the Austrian astronomer, died near Klagenfurt. Born in Vienna on December 24, 1766, Burg was educated under the Jesuits, and at an early age was admitted to the observatory at Vienna. In 1791, he was sent as a teacher to Klagenfurt, but in the following year, on the death of Hell, returned to the observa tory. In 1798, the Institut de France offered a prize for the determination of the mean places of the apogee and ascending node of the lunar orbit, by means of at least 500 observations. Burg applied himself to this laborious task, employing no fewer than 3,232 observations in his calculations. Bouvard was his only competitor, and the judges, Lagrange, Laplace, Delambre, Legendre and Mechain divided the prize, awarding two thirds to Burg. Napoleon, however, aware of the importance of the work, doubled the value of the prize; while the Emperor of Austria decorated Burg with the Cross of Leopold. Burg continued to devote his attention to the study of the motion of the moon, publishing his results at Vienna and Berlin. Becoming deaf, he retired to a house in the country at Wiesena near Klagenfurt, where he died at the age of sixty-seven years.
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Science News a Century Ago. Nature 134, 821 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134821b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134821b0