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Friedrich Simon Archenhold (2 October 1861 in Lichtenau,
Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...
– 14 October 1939 in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
) was an
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, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...
who founded the Treptow Observatory (today the
Archenhold Observatory The Archenhold Observatory () was named in honour of Friedrich Simon Archenhold, is an observatory in Berlin-Treptow. It houses the ''Großer Refraktor'' (Great Refractor), which is the longest pointable telescope in the world. It is also called th ...
) in Berlin-Treptow. He graduated from the Realgymnasium in Lippstadt before entering Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1882, where he and Wilhelm Förster founded the Urania Society at the Berlin University Observatory.


Largest telescope

On the basis of Archenhold's plans, the world's longest moving refracting
telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...
was built with a focal length of 21 meters. The telescope was part of the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin, a world's fair. The giant telescope was constructed in Treptow, a suburb of Berlin. The telescope was opened to the public on 1 May 1896 in a temporary wooden structure which was completed in September.


Public observatory

By 1908 Archenhold had raised the funds to replace the wooden structure with the building that stands today. Some of the funds came from admission fees to lectures but he also was able to secure funds from the Scottish American philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
. Archenhold was able to attract numerous well-known scientists and researchers for guest lectures at the Observatory. Perhaps the most famous was
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
who gave his first public lecture on the
theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
on 2 June 1915. Like Wilhelm Foerster, Archenhold was interested in making scientific knowledge accessible to lay audiences. In addition to his support for the Urania Society, he was a member of various middle-class associations devoted to popularizing science. During 1920 Dr. Archenhold bought a fisherman's house with adobe walls and wooden cladding in the Baltic village of Bansin. When the long summer nights reduced his observation time F. S. Archenhold would take his family to his summer house in Bansin. Here he worked on the magazines and papers that he published at the observatory.


History of the Family

By 1938 the Nazi party confiscated the home from the family. His widow
Alice Archenhold Alice Archenhold (''née'' Markus; 27 August 1874 – 9 February 1943) was a German astronomer whose husband was fellow astronomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold. Alice Markus was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and married Friedrich Simon Archenhol ...
and daughter Hilde died at
Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...
. When the Russians defeated the Nazis the property was used by the community. The Observatory was named after Archenhold in 1946 as the (Archenhold Observatory). The Archenhold family had no right to recover any of the 125 acres of land or house until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. His summer house on Seestraße, 63 is still standing, but it is in very poor condition. The old house in Bansin is now owned by the grand daughter of Dr. Archenhold. After the reunification of Germany the Archenhold Observatory became part of the
Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Museum of Technology) in Berlin, Germany is a museum of science and technology, and exhibits a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail transport, but today it also features e ...
.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Archenhold, Friedrich Simon 1861 births 1939 deaths 19th-century German astronomers 19th-century German Jews 20th-century German astronomers