Abstract
De Sitter was obsessed by gravitation during his whole working life. Till Einstein there was only Newton’s law of gravitation, giving the gravitational force Fg of two masses m1 and m2 on each other: Fg = Gm1m2/r2, in which r is the mutual distance and G the gravitational constant (a mass twice as big gives twice the force, a double distance gives a quarter of the force). With the help of the tools provided by the celestial mechanics De Sitter worked on the heliometer measurements of Gill, in order to deduce from them data of Jupiter’s moons.
More and more I find myself on the path of pure theoretical celestial mechanics.
De Sitter in a letter to Gill [RGO, 15/130, 27-3-1902]
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Notes
- 1.
The German mathematician and theoretical physicist Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) developed a description of the special theory of relativity, in which time and space co-ordinates were treated on an equal footing: the four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime.
- 2.
During an eclipse of the moon the earth is in between the moon and the sun. The moon passes through the conically shaped shadow behind the earth.
- 3.
Besides by astronomy Simon Newcomb (1835–1909) became known by a variety of subjects. He worked together with Michelson to measure the speed of light. He was the first to discover Benford’s law (in a much used table of logarithms the pages starting with a 1 are used more than the other pages). He doubted very much the possibility of a flying machine.
- 4.
The Prussian-American physicist Albert A. Michelson (1852–1931) and the American physicist Edward W. Morley (1838–1923) performed their experiments in 1887.
- 5.
The Entente consisted of the countries opposing Germany in the First World War.
- 6.
Latin Quod erat demonstrandum: Which had to be proven.
- 7.
Cornelis Lely (1854–1929) studied for civil engineer in Delft. He became Minister of Water Management in three different governments, the third time from 1913 until 1918, when he steered his plan to dam the Zuider Zee through parliament. The IJsselmeer Dam was closed in 1932. The Zuider Zee, part of the North Sea, became a lake: the IJsselmeer, with an area of about 2000 km2, of which half has been reclaimed since.
- 8.
Small divisors give large values of a division, which required then many more terms in the series expansions.
- 9.
The Dutch physicist Jacob Clay (1882–1955) studied physics with Kamerlingh Onnes and Lorentz in Leiden. He was professor in Bandung from 1920 until 1929. On the way back to The Netherlands he discovered that cosmic radiation probably consisted of charged particles.
- 10.
The astronomer George H. Darwin (1845–1912), son of Charles Darwin, was president of the RAS from 1899–1901.
- 11.
ASL, Conversation between De Sitter and Dyson, sailing to South Africa, 6 July, 1929.
- 12.
Dutch: Hongerwinter.
- 13.
Commensurability means proportions in whole numbers. For example: the three inner moons of Jupiter have for their the orbital times the commensurability of 1:2:4.
- 14.
Dutch: Periodieke Oplossingen in Commensurabiliteitsgebieden, met toepassing op het probleem der lacunes in het stelsel der asteroïden.
- 15.
Daniel Kirkwood (1814–1895) was an American astronomer, who worked mainly on asteroids. He discovered the later called Kirkwood gaps in their distances to the sun, in his opinion related to orbital resonances with Jupiter.
- 16.
The rotation axis of the earth describes a complete turn in nearly 26,000 years (=360.60.60″/50.2486″).
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Guichelaar, J. (2018). Fundamental Work and a New Theory of Jupiter’s Satellites. In: Willem de Sitter. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98337-0_8
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