Radó von Kövesligethy (in Hungarian usage, Kövesligethy Radó) (Verona, Austria,

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, 1 September 1862 – Budapest, Hungary 11 October 1934), was a Hungarian physicist, astronomer and geophysicist. Kövesligethy developed a spectral equation for

black body radiation Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within, or surrounding, a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an idealized opaque, non-reflective body). It has a specific, continuous spec ...

for the continuous spectra of celestial bodies which had the following properties: the spectral distribution of radiation depends only on the temperature, the total irradiated energy is finite, the wavelength of the intensity maximum is inversely proportional to the temperature. His work was published in 1885 in Hungarian and in 1890 in German, 15 years before the work by

Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

and eight years before

Wien en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

's work on black body radiation). Using his spectral equation, he estimated the temperature of several celestial bodies, including the Sun. He also formulated laws to establish the

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

s of

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

s. He was an assistant to

Loránd Eötvös Baron Loránd Eötvös de Vásárosnamény (or Loránd Eötvös, , '' hu, vásárosnaményi báró Eötvös Loránd Ágoston''; 27 July 1848 – 8 April 1919), also called Baron Roland von Eötvös in English literature, was a Hungarian physicist ...

. In 1895, he was elected as a corresponding member of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...

, and later (1909) as a full member.Kövesligethy Rado. The Eötvös Mathematical and Physical Society collective obituary. Mathematical and Physical Journal, 40 concludes. (1934), published by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Eötvös L. Mat. and Phys. Society. 91-92nd old. His first and most outstanding disciple was the astrophysicist Béla Harkányi.

Sources

Ponticulus Hungaricus
* Balázs et al.:Astr.Nach/ AA 328 (2007), No 7 Short contributions AG 2007 Würzburg * Kövesligethy Radó page 296-297:Magyarok a természettudományés a technika történetében, Országos müszaki információs központ és könyvtár, Budapest 1992
NKFI-EPR:Selected topics on the history of astronomy in Hungary
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20050509075048/http://members.iif.hu/visontay/ponticulus/hidveres/kovesligethy-szferak.html Dr. Kövesligethy Radó: A szférák harmóniája (tudományos-fantasztikus mese)br>Bartha Lajos: Két tudomány-terület magyar úttörője: Kövesligethy Radó emlékezete
* Kosztolányi Dezső
Interjú Kövesligethy Radóval
eredeti megjelenés: Pesti Hírlap, 1925. május 24.

*[http://www.konkoly.hu/Mitteilungen/m8.pdf Szabados László (szerk.): Kövesligethy Radó és az asztrofizika kezdetei Magyarországon. (Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Monographs No. 8. Bp. 2011.)] *Svensk uppslagsbok 1862 births 1934 deaths 20th-century Hungarian physicists Scientists from Budapest Scientists from Verona Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 19th-century Hungarian physicists Physicists from Austria-Hungary {{Physicist-stub