AKA Jacob Robert Emden

Born: 4-Mar-1862
Birthplace: St. Gallen, Switzerland
Died: 8-Oct-1940
Location of death: Zurich, Switzerland
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Mathematician, Astronomer

Nationality: Switzerland
Executive summary: Stellar structure

Swiss mathematician Robert Emden explained stellar structure through a mathematical model he first developed to explain expansion and compression of gas spheres. In a major advance over previous work, his model introduced polytropic solutions, allowing modeling of a much broader range of stellar objects, and suggested that stars have a boundary at a finite radius. He also offered a hypothesis, since discredited, to explain sunspots. He was the brother-in-law of physicist Karl Schwarzschild and uncle of physicist Martin Schwarzschild. The Lane-Emden Equation, described as "a second-order ordinary differential equation that applies to polytropic profiles in density", is named for Emden and Jonathan Homer Lane.

Father: Philip Moritz Emden (businessman)
Mother: Emma Gerstle Emden
Wife: Klara Schwarzschild Emden

    University: BS Physics, University of Strasbourg (1885)
    University: PhD Physics, University of Strasbourg (1887)
    Teacher: Physics and Meteorology, Technical University of Munich (1907-20)
    Teacher: Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (1920-33)

    Lunar Crater Crater Emden

Author of books:
Gaskugeln (Gas Spheres) (1907)

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