Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers is remembered in medicine for work that changed what came after it.
The record lists Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers as German physician and astronomer (1758-1840).
Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers was born at Hemelingen in 1758. His recorded nationality is Bremen. He was educated at Athenaeum and University of Göttingen.
The eighteenth century organised knowledge into academies, expeditions and collections, and turned patronage into something closer to a profession.
The record gives his occupations as physicist, astronomer and physician.
His principal work is Olbers's paradox. Clinical knowledge is accumulated slowly and revised often, usually at some cost.
His recorded fields of work are astronomy.
His work was formally recognised with the Fellow of the Royal Society, Order of the Red Eagle and Lalande Prize.
Working from Bremen shaped what was possible - the audiences within reach, the institutions that would have him, the language the work first appeared in.
Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers died in 1840 at the age of 82. The work outlived the arguments around it.
Achievements
- Notable work: Olbers's paradox
- Educated at Athenaeum and University of Göttingen
- Worked as physicist, astronomer and physician
