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Jacobus Kapteyn
Sign in to saveAlso known as Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteijn, J. C. Kapteijn
Dutch astronomer, best known for his extensive studies of the Milky Way and as the first discoverer of evidence for galactic rotation (1851-1922)
OverviewAI-generated
Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn was a Dutch astronomer, physicist, and university teacher. He was educated at Utrecht University and held positions at Leiden Observatory and the University of Groningen. His academic work included supervising doctoral students such as Willem de Sitter, Jean Jacques Raimond, Jr., and Pieter Johannes van Rhijn, as well as Jan Hendrik Oort.
Kapteyn was a member of the Royal Society, the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Bruce Medal, the James Craig Watson Medal, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was born in 1851 and died in Amsterdam in 1922.
Synthesized by Vinony from 21 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn , ( 1851-01-19 ) 19 January 1851, Barneveld , Netherlands
- Died
- 18 June 1922 (1922-06-18) (aged 71), Amsterdam , Netherlands
- Alma mater
- University of Utrecht
- Known for
- discovery of evidence for galactic rotation
- Awards
- Bruce Medal 1913
- Fields
- Astronomy
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Cornelius
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Place of birth
- Utrecht
- Place of death
- Amsterdam
- Occupation
- physicist
- Educated at
- Utrecht University
- Employer
- University of Groningen
- Languages spoken
- Dutch
- Native language
- Dutch
- Academic degree
- doctorate
- Field of work
- astronomy
- Image
- Jacobus Kapteyn.jpg
Show 9 more facts
- member of
- Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- date of birth
- 1851-00-00
- date of death
- 1922-00-00
- Commons category
- Jacobus Kapteyn
- Commons gallery
- Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn
- name in native language
- Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn
- student
- Jan Hendrik Oort
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
- interested in
- astronomy
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Jacobus Kapteyn on the occasion of his 40th anniversary as professor in Groningen. Sir David Gill in background. Painting by Jan Veth. Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (19 January 1851 – 18 June 1922) was a Dutch astronomer. He carried out extensive studies of the Milky Way. He found that the apparent movement of stars was not randomly distributed but had two preferential directions: the two star streams. This discovery was later reinterpreted as evidence for galactic rotation. Kapteyn also suggested that these stellar velocities could be used to find the amount of non-luminous matter in the galaxy, which his student, Jan Oort, measured in 1932, referring to it as "invisible matter".
Biography
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jacobus Kapteyn” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.