Hermann Brück

Hermann Alexander Brück CBE FRSE GCSG (15 August 1905 – 4 March 2000) was a German-born astronomer, who spent the great portion of his career in various positions in Britain and Ireland.

Education Hermann Brück was born in Berlin. His father was Hermann Heinrich Brück and his mother, Margaret.

Young Hermann was educated at the Kaiserin Augusta Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg, a school specialising in the Classics (Latin and Greek), where he also had excellent teachers in mathematics and physics.

From 1924 to 1928, Brück was educated at Kiel University, the University of Bonn, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His doctoral work on the wave mechanics of crystals was under the supervision of Arnold Sommerfeld. His interest in astronomy came early in life, and he turned his attention to astronomical spectroscopy. He was granted his PhD at Ludwig-Maixmilians-Universität München in 1928.

Career

Upon graduation at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Brück followed his friend Albrecht Unsöld to the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory; Unsöld had earned his doctorate the year before, also under Sommerfeld. While there, Brück participated in the physics colloquium at the Humboldt University of Berlin with the physicists Max von Laue and Albert Einstein and the astronomer Walter Grotrian.

With growing difficulties under National Socialism, Brück left Germany in 1936 to take a temporary research assistantship at the Vatican Observatory. In 1937, he moved to the University of Cambridge to join the circle of modern astrophysicists around Arthur Eddington. In time, Brück became Assistant Director of the Observatories and John Couch Adams Astronomer, specialising in solar spectroscopy. Under his tenure, he taught a course in classical astronomy and started the student astronomical society, which fostered the careers of many astronomers.

In 1947, at the invitation of Éamon de Valera, Brück moved to Dublin to direct the Dunsink Observatory, which was part of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he associated with Erwin Schrödinger. In 1950, the Observatory, along with the Royal Irish Academy, hosted the first meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. initiated a historical study of nineteenth-century astronomy, which resulted in the publication of a book on Charles Piazzi Smyth, one of Brück's predecessors.

Honours

1948 – Member Royal Irish Academy 1955 – Member of the Akadmie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz 1958 – Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), in which he also served on the Council from 1959 to 1962 1966 – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), 1966 New Year Honours 1995 – Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (GCSG)

Books Die Sterne: Monatsschrift für alle Gebiete der Himmelskunde (Johann Ambrosius Barth Vlg., Leipzig, 1933) The Story of Astronomy in Edinburgh from its beginning until 1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 1983) (with Mary T. Brück) Peripatetic Astronomer, The: Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth (Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, United Kingdom, 1988)