Bart Jan Bok (Hoorn, April 28 1906 – Tucson, August 5 1983) was a Dutch-American astronomer. He was born in the Netherlands, and educated at the Leiden and Groningen Universities. In 1929 he married fellow astronomer Dr. Priscilla Fairfield Bok, and for the remainder of their lives the two collaborated closely on their astronomical work. From 1929 until 1957 he worked at Harvard University. He then worked as director of Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia for nine years, before returning to the United States as director of Steward Observatory. He became a US citizen in 1938. In 1975 Bok coauthored the statement Objections to Astrology (The Humanist, 1975)[1], which was endorsed by 186 professional astronomers, astrophysicists, and other scientists, including nineteen winners of the Nobel Prize. The statement was published in The Humanist. This led to the formation of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, of which he was a founding Fellow. Bart Bok was an exceedingly popular personality in the field of astronomy, noted for his affability and humor, as well as his capacity for drinks. The Asteroid 1983 Bok was named for him while he was still living. In the ceremony announcing the award, he thanked the IAU for giving him "a little plot of land that [I] can retire to and live on." He participated in or led several groups to view solar eclipses, the last near Irkutsk in Siberia in the summer of 1980. Bok died of a heart attack in his home in Tucson, Arizona.
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Honors
Awards
Named after him
- Bok crater on the Moon (with his wife)
- Asteroid 1983 Bok (with his wife)
- Bok globules
- Bart J Bok Postdoctoral Fellowship, given out by the Astronomy Department of the University of Arizona and Steward Observatory.
Bibliography
- Bart Jan Bok and Priscilla Fairfield Bok, The Milky Way, 5th ed., Harvard University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-674-57503-2.
- David H. Levy, The Man Who Sold the Milky Way: A Biography of Bart Bok, University of Arizona Press, 1993, ISBN 0816511495 (hardcover); 1995, ISBN 0816515247 (paperback).
