François Folie (1833–1905) was a Belgian astronomer. He was the Administer at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

, director of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Cointe Observatory, and director of the

Royal Observatory of Belgium The Royal Observatory of Belgium (french: link=no, Observatoire Royal de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Sterrenwacht van België), has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels (Belgium) since 1890. It was first established in Saint-Josse ...

Early life

Folie was born on 11 December 1833 in

Venlo Venlo () is a city and municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg, about 50 km east of the city of Eindhoven, 65 km north east of the provincial capital Maastricht, a ...

(then in Belgium). He was the oldest of seven children. In 1830 Belgium declared itself independent from

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and there was a treaty discussion going on to determine the status of the regions. The treaty placed Venlo back in The Netherlands so his father moved to Liège as he was in the military and a captain in the Belgian artillery. In Belgium, his father was put in charge to teach pyrotechnics and artillery advancements to the army. Folie went to college in Liège and on 13 August 1855 Folie earned a mathematics and physics doctorate. His father died young and Folie had to support his mother and 6 siblings.

Later life and Bonn

He started to teach in 1857 at the University of Liège. While doing this he briefly (two months) went to Bonn and started working with

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander (22 March 1799 – 17 February 1875) was a German astronomer. He is known for his determinations of stellar brightnesses, positions, and distances. Life and work Argelander was born in Memel in the Kingd ...

in astronomy. He helped in a study of

variable stars A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as e ...

and with others assisted with a star catalog of the northern hemisphere. Also, while there, he studied thermodynamics under

Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle ...

. He took that training back with him to Liège and started teaching thermodynamics in 1867. On 5 May 1873, Folie married Adalina (born in 1849). Folie and Adalina had 11 children. He is the father of Franz Folie, poet, playwright and Belgian historian who wrote under the alias of Franz Ansell. Folie was the Administer at the

from 1872 to 1884, it was under his administration that most of the buildings of science and medicine were built. In particular, the Cointe Observatory which held the Institute of Astrophysics. He remained director of the institute until 1893. In 1883, he succeeded

Jean-Charles Houzeau Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie (October 7, 1820 – July 12, 1888) was a Belgian astronomer and journalist. A French speaker, he moved to New Orleans after getting in trouble for his politics in Belgium. In the U.S. he continued his journalistic ...

as director of the

. In 1885 Folie became observatory director in Brussels. Because of the increase in size of Brussels it was no longer a good city to do astronomy and he built an observatory at

Uccle Uccle () or Ukkel () is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it is legally bilingual (French–Dutch). It is generally considered an affluent area of the city an ...

. He visited the

Bonn observatory The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...

several times where he worked on astronomy with Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and

Adalbert Krüger Karl Nikolaus Adalbert Krueger (9 December 1832 – 21 April 1896) was a German astronomer. Born in Marienburg, Prussia (now Malbork, Poland), he was editor of '' Astronomische Nachrichten ''from 1881 until his death. Krueger died of a heart con ...

. He was a correspondent of the German physicist Rudolf Clausius and taught the theory of

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...

. He did work on the movements of a solid body (1885), in geometry (in particular with Constantin Le Paige) and on stellar reductions (Twelve tables for calculating stellar reductions 1883, Treaty of stellar reductions 1888). He was a member of the

Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, sometimes referred to as ') is the independent learned society of science and arts of the French Comm ...

. Towards the end of his life he published a summary of all his works under the title ''Thirty-Five Years of Mathematical and Astronomical Work''. In 1897 he retired but continued publishing until he died in Liège, Belgium on 29 January 1905.

Sources

* Eug. De Seyn, ''Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique'', Tome I, 1935 *
''Salmonsens konversationsleksikon''

References

External links

Publications of François Folie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Folie, Francois 19th-century Belgian astronomers 1833 births 1905 deaths