Armin Joseph Deutsch (January 25, 1918–November 11, 1969), was an American

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

and a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

writer. __NOTOC__

Life and career

Deutsch was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and earned a BS from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

in 1940 and, after wartime service as an instructor at the

Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Chanute Field Chanute may refer to: *Chanute, Kansas, United States **Chanute High School *Octave Chanute (1832–1910), American civil engineer and aviation pioneer *Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois, United States *Octave Chanute Award, awarded by the Western S ...

in Illinois, a PhD from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1946 with a dissertation on the spectra of A-type variable stars."Deutsch, Armin Joseph", ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers'', ed. Thomas Hockey et al., Springer Publishing, 2007
Volume 1, p. 295online version 2014
retrieved July 29, 2020."Alumni: Armin J. Deutsch, 1946"
The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, retrieved July 29, 2020. As a graduate student, he was an instructor at

Yerkes Observatory Yerkes Observatory ( ) is an astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The observatory was operated by the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from its founding in 1897 to 2018. Owne ...

. After completing his doctorate, he was an instructor at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

for one year and then in 1947 moved to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he was promoted to lecturer in 1949. Beginning in 1951 he was on the staff of the Mount Wilson and

Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

in California; he died in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

in 1969. Deutsch's research continued to focus on the

A-type star An A-type main-sequence star (A V) or A dwarf star is a main-sequence (hydrogen-burning) star of spectral type A and luminosity class V (five). These stars have spectra defined by strong hydrogen Balmer absorption lines. They measure between 1 ...

s. He established that

Horace Babcock Horace Welcome Babcock (September 13, 1912 – August 29, 2003) was an American astronomer. He was the son of Harold D. Babcock. Career Babcock invented and built a number of astronomical instruments, and in 1953 was the first to propose th ...

and Douglas W. N. Stibbs's oblique rotator model explained the anomalous variability of Ap stars, and later studied other anomalous hot stars, such as the

blue straggler A blue straggler is a main-sequence star in an open or globular cluster that is more luminous and bluer than stars at the main sequence turnoff point for the cluster. Blue stragglers were first discovered by Allan Sandage in 1953 while perform ...

s; he suggested that both they and the Sun had rapidly rotating

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

s. He introduced Doppler

tomography Tomography is imaging by sections or sectioning that uses any kind of penetrating wave. The method is used in radiology, archaeology, biology, atmospheric science, geophysics, oceanography, plasma physics, materials science, astrophysics, quantu ...

in 1958, at a symposium at Mount Wilson. He was associate editor of the ''Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics'', and a councillor of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

from 1964 to 1967. His short story " A Subway Named Mobius", a fantasy based on mathematics and particularly

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

published in December 1950, has been much anthologized and was nominated for a Retro Hugo in 2001; it placed 4th."A Subway Named Mobius"

Internet Speculative Fiction Database The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB ...

, retrieved July 29, 2020.

Selected scientific publications

* Armin J. Deutsch, "The Sun", in ''The New Astronomy, a Scientific American Book'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955 * A. Deutsch, W. Klemperer, eds., ''Space Age Astronomy: Proceedings of an International Symposium held August 7–9, 1961 at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in conjunction with the 11th General Assembly of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(IAU, GA, 11)'', New York: Academic Press, 1962 * Armin J. Deutsch, "The Ageing Stars of the Milky Way", in ''Stars and Galaxies: Birth, Ageing, and Death in the Universe'', ed. Thornton Leigh Page, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1962 * Ann Merchant Boesgaard, Wendy Hagen, Armin J. Deutsch
"Circumstellar Envelopes of M Giants"
''Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society'', Vol. 8, p. 304, March 1976 (his last paper, published posthumously)

Honors

The crater

Deutsch Deutsch or Deutsche may refer to: *''Deutsch'' or ''(das) Deutsche'': the German language, in Germany and other places *''Deutsche'': Germans, as a weak masculine, feminine or plural demonym *Deutsch (word), originally referring to the Germanic ve ...

on the

far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealis ...

of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him.

Notes

External links

* * 1918 births 1969 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists American astronomers American male novelists American science fiction writers Harvard University faculty Ohio State University faculty Scientists from Chicago University of Arizona alumni University of Chicago alumni United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II {{US-astronomer-stub

Life and career

Selected scientific publications

Honors

Notes

Further reading

External links