Bessel meaning

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Bessel function
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist.

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Quick Info

Born

22 July 1784
Minden, Westphalia (now Germany)

Died

17 March 1846
Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia)

Summary

Wilhelm Bessel determined the positions and proper motions of stars. He also used a method of mathematical analysis involving what is now known as the Bessel function.

Biography

Wilhelm Bessel's father was a civil servant in Minden. Bessel attended the Gymnasium in Minden for four years but he did not appear to be very talented, finding Latin difficult. The fact that he later became proficient in Latin, teaching himself the language, probably suggests that the Gymnasium failed to inspire Bessel. In January 1799, at the age of 14, he left school to become an apprentice to the commercial firm of Kulenkamp in Bremen. The firm was involved in the import-export business.

At first Bessel received no salary from the firm but, as his accounting skills became appreciated by the firm, he received a small salary. Interest in the countries his firm dealt with led Bessel to spend his evenings studying geography, Spanish and English.

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In 1784, Germany, one of the greatest astronomers was born. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, better known as Friedrich Bessel, was a young man who was determined to grasp all the knowledge he can from this world. Though he was not necessarily aiming for the heavens yet, he was eager to explore the challenges beyond land. By 14, he was already preparing for his life at sea. Young as he was, he knew that knowledge was power, and started learning stuff a normal 14-year-old wouldn’t study. Though geometry does not sound overboard, how about adding astronomy, navigation, mathematics and two languages to the list? This alone depicts Bessel as a very serious and dedicated intellectual.

During this phase, Bessel had been struck by the peculiar knack for measuring the positions of stars. Later on, the first usage of parallax to compute a change of a star’s location as a result of the earth’s orbiting around the sun will be accredited to him. His first major attempt was basing his studies on a previous astronomer’s observations, particularly that of Halley’s Comet. He sends his work over to ano

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Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

German astronomer and mathematician (1784–1846)

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (German:[ˈbɛsl̩]; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were first studied systematically by Bessel and were named Bessel functions in his honour.^[1]

Life and family

Bessel was born in Minden, Westphalia, then capital of the Prussian administrative region Minden-Ravensberg, as second son of a civil servant into a large family. At the age of 14 he left the school, because he did not like the education in Latin language, and apprenticed in the import-export concern Kulenkamp at Bremen. The business's reliance on cargo ships led him to turn his mathematical skills to problems in navigation. This in turn led to an interest in astronomy as a way of determining longitude.

Bessel came to the attention of Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers,