• DOI:10.1177/002182860203300205
• Corpus ID: 116430665

Menzel and Eclipses

@article{Pasachoff2002MenzelAE,
  title={Menzel and Eclipses},
  author={Jay M. Pasachoff},
  journal={Journal for the History of Astronomy},
  year={2002},
  volume={33},
  pages={139 - 156}
}

• J. Pasachoff
• Published 1 May 2002
• Physics, Education
• Journal for the History of Astronomy

Eclipses played an important role in Donald Menzel's life, and thanks to him they do in mine.' In 1959, when I was a freshman, Harvard was trying to invigorate undergraduate education and started a project to bring senior faculty together with these first-year students. Underscoring the "Educator" portion of the title of this Centennial Symposium, Donald Menzel was one of the professors offering freshman seminars that first year. There were a dozen of us in the seminar," and a substantial fraction went on to be professional astronomers. A total eclipse of the Sun began over Massachusetts on 2 October of that year (Figure 1)and Dr Menzel arranged for an airplane to fly his freshman-seminar students and Observatory staff members above the expected clouds. I remember well this early morning flight, and obviously was inspired by the phenomenon that proved to be the first of the thirty-two solar eclipses I have seen: But it was the science and the spectacle that enthralled at the time; for all I knew all eclipses occurred over Boston. I only recently learned that we freshmen were not add-ons to the staff but, rather, it was vice versa. Menzel wrote:"