Christopher Hansteen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christopher Hansteen (September 26, 1784–April 11, 1873) was a Norwegian astronomer and physicist.

Hansteen was born in Christiania. From the cathedral school he went to the University of Copenhagen, where he studied first law and afterwards mathematics. In 1806 he taught mathematics in the gymnasium of Frederiksborg, Zeeland, and in the following year he began the inquiries in terrestrial magnetism with which his name is especially associated. He took in 1810 the prize of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences for his reply to a question on the magnetic axes. Appointed lecturer in 1814, he was in 1816 raised to the chair of astronomy and applied mathematics at the University of Christiania. In 1819 he published a volume of researches on terrestrial magnetism, which was translated into German by P. T. Hanson, under the title of Untersuchungen über den Magnetismus der Erde, with a supplement containing Beobachtungen der Abweichung und Neigung der Magnetnadel and an atlas. By the rules there framed for the observation of magnetical phenomena Hansteen hoped to accumulate analyses for determining the number and position of the magnetic poles of the earth.

In the course of his research he travelled over Finland and the greater part of his own country; and from 1828 to 1830 he undertook, in company with Georg Adolf Erman, and with the co-operation of Russia, a government mission to Western Siberia. A narrative of the expedition soon appeared (Reise-Erinnerungen aus Siberien, 1854; Souvenirs d’un voyage en Sibérie, 1857); but the chief work was not issued until 1863 (Resultate magnetischer Beobachtungen).

Shortly after the return of the mission, an observatory was erected in the park of Christiania (1833), and Hansteen was appointed director. On his representation a magnetic observatory was added in 1839. From 1835 to 1838 he published textbooks on geometry and mechanics; and in 1842 he wrote his Disquisitiones de mutationibus, quas patitur momentum acus magneticae. He also contributed various papers to different scientific journals, especially the Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne, of which he became joint editor in 1823. He superintended the trigonometrical and topographical survey of Norway, begun in 1837. In 1861 he retired from active work, but still pursued his studies, his Observations de l'inclination magnetique and Sur les variations séculaires du magnetisme appearing in 1865. He died at Christiania.

The Hansteen crater on the Moon is named for him.

Aasta Hansteen, a noted Norwegian feminist and painter, was Christopher Hansteen's daughter.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.