Julio Garavito Armero (January 5, 1865 – March 11, 1920) was a Colombian

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 ...

Life

Born in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

, he was a

child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

in science and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. He obtained his degrees as

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

in the ''Universidad Nacional de Colombia'' (National university of Colombia). In 1892, he worked as the director of the ''Observatorio Astronómico Nacional'' (National Astronomical Observatory). His investigative works had been published in ''Los Anales de Ingeniería'' (The Annals of Engineering) since 1890, seven years before he took over editing the publication. In his youth he studied at San Bartolomé high school, but in 1885 he had to interrupt his studies temporarily because of the

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

s which were affecting his home country. During the

Thousand Days War The Thousand Days' War ( es, Guerra de los Mil Días) was a civil war fought in Colombia from 17 October 1899 to 21 November 1902, at first between the Liberal Party and the government led by the National Party, and later – after the Conser ...

, Garavito was part of a secret scientific society called ''El Círculo de los Nueve Puntos'' (the

nine-point circle In geometry, the nine-point circle is a circle that can be constructed for any given triangle. It is so named because it passes through nine significant concyclic points defined from the triangle. These nine points are: * The midpoint of eac ...

), where the condition for admission was to solve a problem about

Euler's theorem In number theory, Euler's theorem (also known as the Fermat–Euler theorem or Euler's totient theorem) states that, if and are coprime positive integers, and \varphi(n) is Euler's totient function, then raised to the power \varphi(n) is congru ...

. This group was active until Garavito's death. As an astronomer of the observatory, he did many useful scientific investigations such as calculating the

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

of Bogotá, studies about the

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

s which passed by the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

between 1901 and 1910 (such as

Comet Halley Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, is a List of periodic comets, short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–79 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye fr ...

), and the 1916

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six month ...

(seen in the majority of Colombia). But perhaps the most important were his studies about

celestial mechanics Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of objects in outer space. Historically, celestial mechanics applies principles of physics (classical mechanics) to astronomical objects, such as stars and planets, to ...

, which finally turned into studies about lunar fluctuations and their influence on

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

polar ice A polar ice cap or polar cap is a high-latitude region of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor a ...

, and the Earthorbital acceleration (this was corroborated later). He worked also in other areas such as

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

(this work was left unfinished at his death), and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

, by which he helped the country recover from the rough civil war. With this objective, he gave lectures and conferences in economics and the human factors which affected it, such as war or

overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale m ...

. He was later the director of the

Chorographic Commission The Chorographic Commission (Comisión Corográfica in Spanish) was a scientific project initially commissioned in 1850 by the Republic of the New Granada (a region which is now Colombia) that was initially led by the Italian engineer Agustín Coda ...

, created with the objectives of developing the Colombian

railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

and defining the frontier with

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. He is believed to have questioned

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 ...

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 ...

. He has been compared to two great scientists of the 19th century:

José Celestino Mutis José Celestino Bruno Mutis y Bosio (6 April 1732 – 11 September 1808) was a Spanish priest, botanist and mathematician. He was a significant figure in the Spanish American Enlightenment, whom Alexander von Humboldt met with on his expeditio ...

and

Francisco José de Caldas Francisco José de Caldas (October 4, 1768 – October 28, 1816) was a Colombian lawyer, military engineer, self-taught naturalist, mathematician, geographer and inventor (he created the first hypsometer), who was executed by orders of Pablo Mo ...

Trivia

crater Crater may refer to: Landforms *Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet *Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...

on 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 ...

's far side is named Garavito after him. One of the most prestigious universities in Colombia is also named after him:

Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería The Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (Spanish for ''Colombian School of Engineering'') Julio Garavito is a private engineering-based university. The school is located on a campus in a beautiful natural environment in the north part of Bogotá a ...

(Colombian School of Engineering "Julio Garavito"), created in 1972, with a special emphasis in Applied Sciences and Engineering. His face appears on the 20,000 colombian peso

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

, with the Moon on the same side of the bill, and the Earth as viewed from the Moon's surface on the other side. Because of this, and the blue color of the bill, there is a local folk superstition that bringing offerings of blue candles and blue flowers to his grave in the

Central Cemetery of Bogotá Central Cemetery of Bogotá (Spanish: ) is one of the main and most famous cemeteries in Colombia located in Bogotá. Houses several national heroes, poets and former Colombian presidents. It was opened in 1836 and was declared National Monument i ...

and praying there can help one to become wealthy..

Life

Trivia

References

Further reading