Grave of swedish professor Carl Charlier

Carl Vilhelm Ludwig Charlier (1 April 1862 – 4 November 1934) was a Swedish

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

. His parents were Emmerich Emanuel and Aurora Kristina (née Hollstein) Charlier.

Career

Charlier was born in

Östersund Östersund (; ) is an Urban areas in Sweden, urban area (Stad (Sweden), city) in Jämtland in northern Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-larg ...

. He received his Ph.D. from

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

in 1887, later worked there and at the

Stockholm Observatory The Stockholm Observatory (, IAU code#050, 050) is an astronomical observatory and institution in Stockholm, Sweden, founded in the 18th century and today part of Stockholm University. In 1931, the new Stockholm Observatory (, IAU code#052, 052), ...

and was Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

from 1897. He made extensive statistical studies of the stars in our galaxy and their positions and motions, and tried to develop a model of the galaxy based on this. He proposed the siriometer as a unit of stellar distance. Charlier was also interested in pure statistics and played a role in the development of statistics in Swedish academia. Several of his pupils became statisticians, working at universities and in government and companies. Related to his work on galactic structure, he also developed a cosmological theory based on the work of

Johann Heinrich Lambert Johann Heinrich Lambert (; ; 26 or 28 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was a polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse, at that time allied to the Switzerland, Swiss Confederacy, who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, phys ...

. In the resulting Lambert-Charlier Hierarchical Cosmology, increasingly large areas of space contain decreasing densities of matter, the principle being introduced to avoid the observational inconsistency that would otherwise emerge from Olbers's paradox. Late in his career, he translated

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

's ''Principia'' into Swedish. He died in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

, aged 72. *

James Craig Watson Medal image:Watson_medal_NAS.gif, 400px, James Craig Watson Medal The James Craig Watson Medal was established by the bequest of James Craig Watson, an astronomer the University of Michigan between 1863 and 1879, and is awarded every 1-4 years by the U.S. ...

(1924) *

Bruce Medal The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was ...

(1933) Named after him * Charlier (lunar crater) * Charlier (Martian crater) on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

8677 Charlier *

Charlier polynomials In mathematics, Charlier polynomials (also called Poisson–Charlier polynomials) are a family of orthogonal polynomials introduced by Carl Charlier. They are given in terms of the generalized hypergeometric function by :C_n(x; \mu)= _2F_0(-n,-x;-; ...

Publications

*Carl Ludwig Charlier: Die Mechanik des Himmels, 1902–1907, Leipzig: Veit, (2 volumes) (2nd edition in 1927)
Lectures on Stellar Statistics. Charlier. 1921

References

Bibliography

* Gustav Holmberg, ''Reaching for the Stars: Studies in the History of Swedish Stellar and Nebular Astronomy, 1860-1940 (Lund, 1999)'

* Gustav Holmberg, "C.V.L. Charlier", in

External links

Bruce Medal page

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Charlier, Carl 1862 births 1934 deaths 19th-century Swedish astronomers Swedish statisticians Uppsala University alumni People from Östersund Academic staff of Lund University 20th-century Swedish astronomers