Remembering Edith Alice Müller

151 Pages·1998·5.08 MB·English

by  Jean-Claude Pecker (auth.)

REMEMBERING EDITH ALICE MULLER
ASTROPHYSICS AND
SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY
VOLUME 222
Executive Committee
W. B. BURTON, Sterrewacht, Leiden, The Netherlands
J. M. E. KUIJPERS, Faculty of Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, Astronomical Institute, University ofA msterdam,
The Netherlands
H. VAN DER LAAN, Astronomical Institute, University of Utrecht,
The Netherlands
Editorial Board
I. APPENZELLER, Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Konigstuhl, Germany
J. N. BAHCALL, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A.
F. BERTOLA, Universita di Padova, Italy
W. B. BURTON, Sterrewacht, Leiden, The Netherlands
J. P. CASSINELLI, University ofW isconsin, Madison, U.S.A.
C. J. CESARSKY, Centre d' Etudes de Saclay, Gij-sUT-Yvene Cedex, France
O. ENGVOLD, Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University ofO slo, Norway
1. M. E. KUIJPERS, Faculty of Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
R. McCRAY, University of Colorado, JILA, Boulder, U.S.A.
P. G. MURDIN, Royal Greenwich Observatory, Cambridge, U.K.
F. PACINI, Istituto Astronomia Arcetri, Firenze, Italy
V. RADHAKRISHNAN, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India
K. SAT O, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Japan
F. H. SHU, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia
R. A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Y. TANAKA, Institute of Space & Astronautical Science, Kanagawa, Japan
S. TREMAINE, CITA, University of Toronto, Canada
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, Astronomical Institute, University ofA msterdam,
The Netherlands
H. VAN DER LAAN, Astronomical Institute, University of Utrecht,
The Netherlands
N. O. WEISS, University ofC ambridge, U.K.
REMEMBERING
••
EDITH ALICE MULLER
Edited by
1. APPENZELLER
Landessternwarte, Heidelberg, Germany
Y. CHMIELEWSKI
Observatoire de Geneve, Sauverny, Switzerland
J.-C. PECKER
College de France, Paris, France
R.DELAREZA
Observat6rio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazii
G.TAMMANN
Universitat Basel, Switzerland
and
P.WAYMAN
University ofD ublin, lreland
..
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, BV.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rememberlng Edith Allce Muller I edited by 1. Appenzeller ..• [et
al.].
p. c •. -- (Astrophyslcs and space sclence library : v. 222)
Includes bibllographlcal references and lndex.
ISBN 978-94-010-6175-9 ISBN 978-94-011-5173-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-5173-3
1. Muller, Edlth Allce. 2. Ho.en astronolers--Swltzerland
-Blography. 1. Muller, Edlt'1t Al ice. ·11. Appenzeller, 1. (lIIImo) ,
1940- III. Serles.
CB38.M78R48 1998
520' .92--dc21
[B] 97-48784
ISBN 978-94-010-6175-9
Printed on acid-free paper
AU Rights Reserved
@ 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 1998
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permis sion from the copyright owner.
Edith Muller, in her office at Sauverny, with (from left to right) : Felix Llorente de Andres,
Yves Chmielewski, Ramiro de la Reza, discussing the cosmic abundances of elements ...
A page out of Edith Muller's doctoral dissertation. Note the analogy with Max
Escher's famous works.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Foreword, Jean-Claude Peeker 5
Edith Alice MUller, Short biography, Yves Chmielewski 6
SPAIN AND SWITZERLAND: THE YOUTH
The life of Edith A. MUller :
Personal and professional aspects, Rosmarie Frey 11
Meeting with Edith MUller, Fritz Egger 17
Starting with the Sun and Edith MUller, Paul Wild 18
I knew Edith for nearly half a century, Cornelis de Jager 21
From ZUrich to the IAU ... Laughs and duties, Jean-Claude Peeker 28
Edith in Cambridge and Ireland, 1951, Hermann and Mary T. BrUck 32
From a semester in Cambridge, Bernard E.J. Pagel . 34
THE SUNNY YEARS OF ANN ARBOR
Friends in Ann Arbor, Wilfred and Ida R. Kaplan 35
The Ann Arbor Community, Donat G. Wentzel 40
Coffee breaks in Ann Arbor, Guenther H. Elste 43
An attractive little house, Anne P. Cowley 44
From a summer school in Michigan, E. Margaret Burbidge 45
Around the chemical elements, Lawrence H. Aller 47
From Ann Arbor onwards, Leo Houziaux 49
The right balance, Sidney Van den Bergh . 53
BACK TO SWITZERLAND: GENEVA ...
Back to Switzerland at Geneva, Marcel Golay . 55
The privilege of having been EAM's collaborator, Yves Chmielewski 60
The solar Lithium story, Ramiro de la Reza 64
At Tucson, looking at the solar system, William C. Livingston . 66
Remembering Edith Alicia, Felix Llorente de Andres . . 68
From the solar iron abundance to the Secretariat of the IAU,
J.P. Swings . 80
3
Kitt Peak, MacMath, the Sun and JOSO, Jan O. Stenflo 82
From one JOSO to another, Brigitte Schmieder 84
Edith back in Andalusia, Emilio J. Alfaro . 85
Montreal, the Joch, the Canaries, Rene and Simone Dumont 87
How the entropy is increasing, William E. Howard III 89
TOGETHER WITH THE IAU
The IAU tribute to Edith A. Miiller, Andre Maeder 92
One great Lady astronomer, Anne B. Underhill 94
A legendary polyglot ... and lovely days, John T. Jefferies 96
From one GS of the IAU to another, George Contopoulos 98
Edith Miiller, General Secretary of the IAU, Patrick Wayman 99
From one G.A. to another, Derek McNally 107
Edith and the IAU : one big family, Alan H. Batten 111
Edith Miiller at work on the planets, Audouin Dollfus 114
Painful memories and welcome sight at Geneva, Kath Giovanelli 115
Teaching astronomy Edith Miiller and the IAU,
Cecylia Iwaniszewska 115
Edith A. Miiller and IAU commission 46, John R. Percy 117
Astronomy in education. .. and Swiss watches, Evry Schatzman 124
Brief encounters, here and there, Edward V. Kononovitch 125
My Science Mother, K. Sinha 126
Do I remember Edith Miiller ?, Peter B. Boyce . 127
Tchai"kovsky, Pushkin, ... and the Sun, V.L. Khokhlova 130
Edith Miiller in Abastumani, E.K. Kharadze 131
Drinking tea in Georgia, Brigitte Manning 133
From our first meeting, she confided in me, Yaroslav S. Yastkiv 134
Edith and the giant radiotelescope, Govind Swarup 136
From "down under", Peter R. Wilson 136
In Geneva, one day, AlIa G. Massevich 136
Edith Miiller missed in Japan, Yoshihide Kozai 137
BIBLIOGRAPHY 139
INDEX OF NAMES 145
4
INTRODUCTION
FOREWORD.
Jean-Claude Pecker (Paris, France)
The idea of grouping a few texts devoted to the evocation of the life of Edith
MUller came from a pleasant walk, in the sunny fall of 1996, along the beaches of
the Rio de la Plata, in front of Montevideo, with Ramiro de la Reza. Edith had
been, for so many of us in the world, not only an excellent colleague, but a good
friend, that it became immediately obvious that the idea was quite appropriate,
certainly still more for her, who had friends all over the world, than for many
others. Soon, this project become more precise, with the enlargement of our little
nucleus to Yves Chmielewski, her former student in Geneva, like Ramiro, Gustav
Tammann, her almost neighbour in Basel, Immo Appenzeller, her ... "grand-grand
.... -grand son" , in his capacity of General Secretary of the IAU, and finally Patrick
Wayman, who succeeded Edith as General Secretary and who accepted to improve
the English of these very diverse texts ....
We are indebted to many friends and colleagues for their contributions,
sometimes short evocations of a privileged moment, sometimes more precise
and long accounts of a scientific encounter over the Sun, or over the chemical
elements .... It was not the purpose of this book to give a complete account of all
the scientific contributions of Edith to solar physics, nor was it intended to give
a detailed view of her many administrative duties. We wanted mostly to share
with the readers the remembrance we all had of a very fine person, full of life,
of "joie-de-vivre" , full of ideas, and devoted to her family, to her friends, to her
responsibilities.
I want here not only to thank all the contributors, but also to express our
appreciation of the help the IAU has given us, and to thank also Kluwer Publishers
and their staff for the care they gave to the publication of this book. I personally
want to thank also Ruth Schatzman who has translated the texts written in
Russian, Dominique Bidois for her invaluable material help in giving a shape to
that ensemble, Jean-Pierre Martin who helped us in formatting the photographs,
the Observatory of Geneva, the College de France for various services, and of
course, last but not least, my five coeditors and old-time friends Immo, Yves,
Ramiro, Gustav and Patrick. ..
5
------Yves Chmielewski (Geneva, Switzerland) -----
EDITH ALICE MULLER (1918-1995)
Short Biography
Edith Milller, a Swiss citizen, was born on February 5, 1918 in Madrid
(Spain) where she attended the German School from 1924 to 1936. After having
obtained her Maturity diploma in June 1936, she went to the University of Ziirich,
Switzerland, where she first obtained in 1942 a diploma for higher teaching (math.
phys.) In 1943, she presented, still at the University of Zurich, a quite original
Ph. D. thesis on the "Application of Group Theory and Structural Analysis to
the Moorish adornments of the Alhambra in Granada". From 1946 to 1951, she
worked as an assistant at the Swiss Federal Observatory in Ziirich.
In 1951, she was an invited as
tronomer at Cambridge University
Observatory (Great Britain). The
years 1952 to 1954 were spent as
a research assistant at the Michi
gan University Observatory in Ann
Arbor (USA). She went back to
Switzerland for a short while, spend
ing the period 1954-55 at the Basel
University where she occupied a po
sition as research and teaching asso
ciate. She returned to the Michigan
University Observatory where she took over a research and teaching associate
ship from 1955 to 1962. It was during this very happy, active and fruitful period
that she participated in the huge piece of work which was reported in the famous
G.M.A. (Goldberg-MulIer-Aller, 1960) paper on the abundances of the elements
in the solar atmosphere, one of the most cited in the astrophysical literature. An
other very important research undertaken during this period, together with J.P.
Mutschlecner, concerned the effects of deviations from the local thermodynamic
equilibrium on the solar abundances (Muller and Mutschlecner, 1964).
The year 1962 saw her final return to Switzerland, where she joined the
young research team that had just started to revive the University of Geneva
6