Friedrich Simon Archenhold (2 October 1861 in Lichtenau,

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

– 14 October 1939 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) was an

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 ...

who founded the Treptow Observatory (today the

Archenhold Observatory The Archenhold Observatory () was named in honour of Friedrich Simon Archenhold, is an observatory in Berlin-Treptow. It houses the ''Großer Refraktor'' (Great Refractor), which is the longest pointable telescope in the world. It is also called ...

) in

Berlin-Treptow Treptow () was a former borough in the southeast of Berlin. It merged with Köpenick to form Treptow-Köpenick in 2001. Geography The district was composed by the localities of Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald, Baumschulenweg, Niederschönewei ...

. He graduated from the Realgymnasium in

Lippstadt Lippstadt () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the largest town within the district of Soest. Lippstadt is situated about 60 kilometres east of Dortmund, 40 kilometres south of Bielefeld and 30 kilometres west of Paderborn. Geo ...

before entering Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1882, where he and Wilhelm Förster founded the Urania Society at the Berlin University Observatory.

Largest telescope

On the basis of Archenhold's plans, the world's longest moving refracting

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

was built with a

focal length The focal length of an Optics, optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the Multiplicative inverse, inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system Converge ...

of 21 meters. The telescope was part of the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin, a world's fair. The giant telescope was constructed in Treptow, a suburb of Berlin. The telescope was opened to the public on 1 May 1896 in a temporary wooden structure which was completed in September.

Public observatory

By 1908 Archenhold had raised the funds to replace the wooden structure with the building that stands today. Some of the funds came from admission fees to lectures but he also was able to secure funds from the Scottish American philanthropist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

. Archenhold was able to attract numerous well-known scientists and researchers for guest lectures at the Observatory. Perhaps the most famous was

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

who gave his first public lecture on the

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical ph ...

on 2 June 1915. Like Wilhelm Foerster, Archenhold was interested in making scientific knowledge accessible to lay audiences. In addition to his support for the Urania Society, he was a member of various middle-class associations devoted to popularizing science. During 1920 Dr. Archenhold bought a fisherman's house with adobe walls and wooden cladding in the Baltic village of Bansin. When the long summer nights reduced his observation time F. S. Archenhold would take his family to his summer house in

Bansin Bansin forms the westernmost part of the seaside resort town of Heringsdorf in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, on the east coast of Usedom island, about five miles by rail northwest of Świnoujście. Bansin is one of the most popular resort ...

. Here he worked on the magazines and papers that he published at the observatory.

History of the family

By 1938 the Nazi party confiscated the home from the family. His widow

Alice Archenhold Alice Archenhold (''née'' Markus; 27 August 1874 – 9 February 1943) was a German astronomer whose husband was fellow astronomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold. Alice Markus was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and married Friedrich Simon Archenhol ...

and daughter Hilde died at

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

. When the Russians defeated the Nazis the property was used by the community. The Observatory was named after Archenhold in 1946 as the (Archenhold Observatory). The Archenhold family had no right to recover any of the 125 acres of land or house until the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

in 1989. His summer house on Seestraße, 63 is still standing, but it is in very poor condition. The old house in Bansin is now owned by his granddaughter. After the reunification of Germany, the Archenhold Observatory became part of the

Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Museum of Technology) in Berlin, Germany is a museum of science museum, science and technology museum, technology, and exhibits a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail tra ...

. Archenhold is buried in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Archenhold, Friedrich Simon 1861 births 1939 deaths 19th-century German astronomers 19th-century German Jews 20th-century German astronomers