Ole Christensen Rømer (September 25, 1644 - September
19, 1710) was a Danish astronomer who made the first, somewhat,
successful measurements of the speed of light (1676). Rømer was born in
Aarhus and died in Copenhagen.
After studies in Copenhagen, Rømer in 1672 went to Paris. It was there
that he demonstrated that light propagates at a finite speed. Rømer
observed the eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io, and developed a model that
allowed him to predict the next eclipse. He observed that, over the
course of a year, the range of variation in the timing of these eclipses
was about 16.6 minutes, and concluded that this was the length of time
required for light to travel across the diameter of the Earth's orbit, a
distance of 2 AU. This discovery lent support to the heliocentric theory
of the solar system. Romer's measurements had an error of 10-25%, due to
a lack of understanding regarding the actual distances involved.
His discovery was published in a short paper, "Démonstration touchant le
mouvement de la lumière trouvé par M. Roemer de l'Académie des Sciences",
in Journal des savants, 7. December 1676.
He was employed by the French government: King Louis XIV made him teacher
for the Dauphin, and he also took part in the construction of the
fountains at Versailles.
In 1681, Rømer returned to Denmark and was appointed professor of
Astronomy at Copenhagen University. He was active also as an observer,
both at the University Observatory at the Round Tower and in his home,
using improved instruments of his own construction. Unfortunately, his
observations have not survived: they were lost at the great fire of
Copenhagen in 1728.
In the year 1700, he managed to get the government to introduce the
Gregorian calendar in Denmark-Norway -- something which Tycho Brahe had
argued for in vain a hundred years earlier. |
