Biographical Memoirs V.61

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Biographical Memoirs: Volume 61

OTTO STRUVE

August 12, 1897-April 6, 1963

BY KEVIN KRISCIUNAS

''WORK WAS THE MOTTO of the whole of life. In a letter [we find] the following passage: The Struves cannot live happily without unceasing work, since from the earliest youth we have been persuaded that it is the most useful and best seasoning of human life.''¹ Easily counted as one of the prominent astronomers of his century, Struve left a standard that many sought to emulate but few achieved.

The Struve I have just described is not the Otto Struve of this memoir, but his great-grandfather Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864). Yet the words apply equally well. The first of seven Struves in five generations to obtain a Ph.D. (or its equivalent) in astronomy,² in 1839 Wilhelm Struve founded Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg, which has played a major role in positional astronomy ever since. ³ Wilhelm was one of the first three astronomers to measure the trigonometric parallax of a star—the final proof of Copernicanism. He published 272 works⁴ and had eighteen children.⁵

Of the six Struves who pursued a career in astronomy,⁶ four won the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society: great-grandfather Wilhelm in 1826, grandfather Otto Wilhelm in 1850, uncle Hermann in 1903, and our Otto in 1944. Such a level of recognition in astronomy

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