Fritz Zwicky | |
|---|---|
 Zwicky in 1947 | |
| Born | February 14, 1898 Varna, Bulgaria |
| Died | February 8, 1974 (aged 75) Pasadena, California, US |
| Citizenship | Swiss |
| Alma mater | Swiss Federal Polytechnic |
| Known for | Dark matter, supernovae, galaxies as gravitational lenses, neutron stars |
| Awards | President's Medal of Freedom (1949) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1972) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter Debye and Paul Scherrer |
Fritz Zwicky (/ˈtsvɪki/;[1] German: [ˈtsvɪki]; February 14, 1898 – February 8, 1974) was a Swiss astronomer. He worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology in the United States of America, where he made many important contributions in theoretical and observational astronomy.[2] In 1933, Zwicky was the first to use the virial theorem to postulate the existence of unseen dark matter, describing it as "dunkle Materie".[3][4]
- ^ "Zwicky". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ^ Arp, Halton (June 1974). "Fritz Zwicky". Physics Today. 27 (6): 70–71. Bibcode:1974PhT....27f..70A. doi:10.1063/1.3128662. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013.
- ^ Zwicky, F. (1933), "Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln" [The red shift of extragalactic neubulae], Helvetica Physica Acta (in German), 6: 110–127, Bibcode:1933AcHPh...6..110Z From p 125: "Um, wie beobachtet, einen mittleren Dopplereffekt von 1000 km/sek oder mehr zu erhalten, müsste also die mittlere Dichte im Comasystem mindestens 400 mal grösser sein als die auf Grund von Beobachtungen an leuchtender Materie abgeleitete. Falls sich dies bewahrheiten sollte, würde sich also das überraschende Resultat ergeben, dass dunkle Materie in sehr viel grösserer Dichte vorhanden ist als leuchtende Materie." (In order to obtain an average Doppler effect of 1000 km/s or more, as observed, the average density in the Coma system would thus have to be at least 400 times greater than that derived on the basis of observations of luminous matter. If this were to be verified, the surprising result would then follow that dark matter is present in very much greater density than luminous matter.)
- See also Zwicky, F. (1937), "On the masses of nebulae and of clusters of nebulae", Astrophysical Journal, 86: 217, Bibcode:1937ApJ....86..217Z, doi:10.1086/143864
- ^ de Swart, J. G.; Bertone, G.; van Dongen, J. (2017). "How dark matter came to matter". Nature Astronomy. 1 (59): 0059. arXiv:1703.00013. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E..59D. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0059. S2CID 119092226.