CHRISTOPHER

See also:

• CHRISTOPHER HANSTEEN (1784–1873)

HANSTEEN (1784–1873)  , Norwegian astronomer and physicist, was born at Christiania, on the 26th of September 1784 . From the cathedral school he went to the university at Copenhagen, where first law and afterwards mathematics formed his main study . In 18o6 he taught mathematics in the gymnasium of Frederiksborg, Zeeland, and in the following year he began the inquiries in terrestrial magnetism with which his name is especially associated . He took in 181a the prize of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences for his reply to a question on the magnetic axes . Appointed lecturer in 1814, he was in 1816 raised to the chair of astronomy and applied mathematics in the university of Christiania . In 1819 he published a volume of researches on terrestrial magnetism, which was translated into German by P . T . Hanson, under the title of Untersuchungen fiber den Magnetismus der Erde, with a supplement containing Beobachtungen der Abweichung and Neigung der Magnelnadel and an atlas . By the rules there framed for the observation of magnetical phenomena Hansteen hoped to accumulate analyses for determining the number and position of the magnetic poles of the earth . In prosecution of his researches he travelled over Finland and the greater part of his own country; and in 1828–183o he undertook, in company with G . A . Erman, and with the co-operation of Russia, a government mission to Western Siberia .

A narrative of the expedition soon appeared (Reise-Erinnerungen aus Sibirien, 1854; Souvenirs

HAPARANDA 932 d' un voyage en Siberie, 1857); but the chief work was not issued till 1863 (Resultate magnetischer Beobachtungen, &c.) . Shortly after the return of the mission, an observatory was erected in the park of Christiania (1833), and,Hansteen was appointed director . On his ,representation a magnetic observatory was added in 1839: In 1835—1838 he published text-books on geometry and mechanics; and in 1842 he wrote his Disquisitiones de mutatlensbus quas patitur momentum aces magneticae, &c . He alsei ontributed various papers to different scientific journals, especially the Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne, of which he betable joint-editor in 1823 . He superintended the trigonometrical and topographical survey of Norway, begun in 1837 . In 1861 he retired from active work, but still pursued his studies, his Observations de l'inclination magnetique and Sur les variations seculaires du magnetisme appearing in 1865 . He died at Christiania on the 11th of April 1873 .