Unlike many men of achievement, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel did little to give an indication of his forthcoming accomplishments during his early and limited education. He stumbled upon his genius by way of accepting an apprenticeship as a bookkeeper with...

The German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846) established the modern ideals and standards of precision in astronomy and obtained the first measurement of the distance to a star. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born in Minden, North...

Friedrich Bessel was a self-taught astronomer. Born in Minden, Germany, on July 22, 1784, he became an accountant in Bremen, but his true interests were astronomy and mathematics. In fact, in 1806, at the age of twenty, he recalculated the orbit of...

1784-1846 German Astronomer and Mathematician Friedrich Bessel was one of the founders of modern astronomy. He made the first accurate measurements of the positions of stars and of interstellar distances, providing the data upon which an understanding...

German astronomer Friedrich Bessel was a self-taught astronomer. Born in Minden, Germany in 1784, he became an accountant in Bremen, but his true interests were astronomy and mathematics. In fact, in 1806, at the age of 20, he recalculated the orbit of...

1784-1846 German astronomer and mathematician whose work in astronomy, celestial mechanics, and mathematics led him at age 26 to the Königsberg Observatory directorship, a position he held all his life. He is best remembered for a mathematical...

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (July 22, 1784 – March 17, 1846) was a German mathematician, astronomer, and systematizer of the Bessel functions (which were discovered by Daniel Bernoulli). He was born in Minden, Westphalia and died of cancer in...