Owen Gingerich facts for kids
Owen Jay Gingerich (1930-2023) was a famous American astronomer and science historian. He taught at Harvard University and worked as a senior astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He was known for his research, teaching, and many books about the history of astronomy.
Owen Gingerich was also a member of important groups like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a Christian and was active in the American Scientific Affiliation, a group for scientists who are also evangelical Christians.
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Early Life
Owen Gingerich was born on March 24, 1930, in Washington, Iowa. His family was Mennonite. He grew up in Kansas, where he first became interested in space and stars. His father was a history teacher.
Owen started attending Goshen College in Indiana even before he finished high school. He then went to Harvard University to study astronomy. In 2004, Newton High School gave him an honorary high school diploma. He even gave a speech at their graduation!
Amazing Discoveries and Teaching
Owen Gingerich became a popular astronomy teacher at Harvard. He was known for his fun and unusual ways of teaching. For example, he once used a fire extinguisher to show Newton's third law of motion. He also dressed up like a 16th-century Latin scholar to make history come alive!
Defining Planets
Owen Gingerich was part of a special committee that helped decide what a "planet" is. This was important because new objects like Eris were being discovered. The committee first suggested a definition that would keep Pluto as a planet. This definition said a planet needed to be round and orbit a star.
However, the final definition chosen by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) added another rule. It said a planet must also have "cleared its neighborhood" of other objects. This meant Pluto was no longer considered a planet. Owen Gingerich was not happy with this change.
Exploring the Cosmos
Besides teaching, Owen Gingerich also studied the history of astronomy. In the 1950s, he researched the life of Charles Messier. Messier was a French astronomer who created a famous list of space objects, called the Messier Catalog.
Gingerich found notes about two more objects that Messier had seen. He added them to the catalog as M108 and M109. He also looked into "missing" Messier objects. He thought M91 might have been a comet and M102 a duplicate of M101.
The Book Nobody Read
Owen Gingerich became a top expert on Nicolaus Copernicus and his famous book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. This book explained that the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around.
A writer once claimed that "nobody read" Copernicus's book. Owen Gingerich decided to check if this was true. He traveled the world for 30 years, looking at copies of the book. He found that many people had read and studied it, making notes in the margins. He also found out where and how the book was censored.
Because of Gingerich's amazing work, De revolutionibus is now one of the most studied old books, second only to the original Gutenberg Bible. He wrote a book about his journey called The Book Nobody Read in 2004. For his work on Copernicus, the Polish government gave him the Order of Merit of Poland award in 1981.
Science and Faith
Owen Gingerich was a Christian who also studied science and its history. He often talked about how science and faith can connect. He believed that there is a God who designed the universe. He thought God used the process of evolution to create life and achieve bigger goals.
He said that he believed in "intelligent design" (with small letters). This meant he thought there was a designer. But he had problems with "Intelligent Design" (with big letters). This is a movement that is often seen as being against evolution.
Gingerich believed that science helps us understand "how" things happen. But faith and the Bible help us understand "who" is behind it all and "why." He felt that science and faith answer different questions.
Awards and Recognition
At Harvard, Owen Gingerich taught a popular science course for students who weren't science majors. It was called "The Astronomical Perspective." He was known for his creative teaching. Once, to get more students to sign up, he even hired a plane to fly over Harvard with a banner advertising his class! In 1984, he won an award for his excellent teaching.
Owen Gingerich wrote more than 20 books and almost 600 articles. He won the Doggett Prize in 2000 for his work in the history of astronomy. In 2006, he received the Prix Jules Janssen from the French Astronomical Society.
In 2009, he won the Trotter Prize. An Asteroid named 2658 Gingerich was discovered in 1980 and named in his honor.
Personal Life
Owen Gingerich and his wife, Miriam, were married for over 60 years. They had three sons: Jonathan, Mark, and Peter, and three grandchildren. They enjoyed traveling and taking photos.
Owen Gingerich passed away on May 28, 2023, in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Books by Owen Gingerich
- Owen Gingerich: "Astronomy" in The Encounter between Christianity and Science, Edited by Richard H. Bube, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968, pages 109-133
- Owen Gingerich, Robert S. Westman: The Wittich Connection: Conflict and Priority in Late Sixteenth-century Cosmology, American Philosophical Society, 1988, [1]
- Owen Gingerich: The Great Copernicus Chase and other Adventures in Astronomical History. Cambridge University Press, 1992 ISBN: 978-0-521-32688-9
- Owen Gingerich: The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993 ISBN: 0-88318-863-5
- Owen Gingerich: An annotated census of Copernicus' De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566). Leiden: Brill, 2002 ISBN: 90-04-11466-1 (Studia copernicana. Brill's series; v. 2)[2]
- Owen Gingerich: The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. New York: Walker, 2004 ISBN: 0-8027-1415-3
- Owen Gingerich: God's Universe. Belnap Press, 2006 ISBN: 0-674-02370-6
- Owen Gingerich: God's Planet. Harvard University Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-674-41710-6
- General editor of Oxford Portraits in Science (1996– ?)
See also
In Spanish: Owen Gingerich para niños
