Heckmann, Otto

Otto Heckmann, in full Otto Hermann Leopold Heckmann, (born June 23, 1901, Opladen, Germany—died May 13, 1983, cosmology. He also made notable contributions to statistical mechanics.

After obtaining his Ph.D. (1925) at the University of Bonn, Heckmann became assistant astronomer at its observatory (1925–27) and at the University Observatory in Göttingen (1927–35). He became lecturer in astronomy at the University of Göttingen in 1929 and assistant professor in 1935. From 1941 to 1962 he was director of the Hamburg Observatory and head of the department of astronomy at Hamburg University.

Heckmann organized an international program to photograph and chart the positions of the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. This monumental task, involving observatories in England, France, West Germany, East Germany, the Soviet Union, Canada, and the United States, led to the publication in 1975 of the third German Astronomical Society catalog, Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog, commonly known as the AGK3.

In 1931 Heckmann proved that, under the assumptions that matter is homogeneously distributed throughout the universe and is isotropic (having identical properties in every direction), the theory of general relativity could result in an open, or Euclidean, universe as readily as a closed one.

During the 1950s, in collaboration with Engelbert Schücking, Heckmann found that an expanding universe might have an absolute rotation, which would have extraordinary influence upon the choice of an evolutionary cosmological model. The mathematical analysis of these models is so complex, however, that definite results have not yet been found.

From 1967 to 1970, Heckmann was president of the International Astronomical Union. Among his many honours, he received the Watson Medal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1961) and the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1964).