Background
Robert Grant was born on December 31, 1864, in Jackson, California, United States. He was a son of Robert and Wilhelmina (Depinau) Aitken.
Aitken, Robert Grant, 1864–1951.
Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
University of the Pacific, Stockton, California.
Aitken studied at the University of California, Law, Doctor of Laws, Los Angeles, California, United States.
Aitken was a recipient of the Bruce Medal in 1926.
Aitken was an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in 1932 he was awarded that Society's Gold Medal.
Aitken was awarded the Rittenhouse Medal in 1934.
Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, California, 1902.
A scene showing the Lick Observatory party ready for the eclipse. All of the instruments are in place and the volunteers are at their practice stations. The 40-ft. Schaeberle Camera with its twin wooden towers dominates the scene (Courtesy Mary Lea Shane Archives).
Lick Observatory telescope, 19th century.
Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California. Interior - the meridian instrument, photo by H.E. Mathews.
Lick Observatory Mount Hamilton in California, United States. Vintage illustration from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 1897.
Aitken, Robert Grant, 1864–1951.
Aitken, Robert Grant at his office in the Lick Observatory, University of California.
Aitken, Robert Grant, 1864–1951. Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Astronomer mathematician scientist
Robert Grant was born on December 31, 1864, in Jackson, California, United States. He was a son of Robert and Wilhelmina (Depinau) Aitken.
Aitken at first intended to become a minister, but his studies in biology and astronomy at Williams College (1883-1887) diverted his interests to science. Aitken attended Williams College in Massachusetts and graduated with an undergraduate degree in 1887. He received his A.M. degree in 1892, and an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of the Pacific in 1903, Williams College, 1917, University of Arizona, 1923. He received his Doctor of Laws from the University of California in 1935.
From 1887–1891, Aitken worked as a mathematics instructor at Livermore, California. In 1891 he became professor of mathematics at the University of the Pacific, where there was a small observatory with a six-inch Clark refractor. In 1894 he visited Mt. Hamilton, and the following year returned there as assistant astronomer at the Lick Observatory He was offered an assistant astronomer position at Lick Observatory in California in 1895.
From 1898 to 1942, Aitken was an editor of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Aitken’s early work at Lick was routine and varied, but double stars soon came to take up more and more of his time. He began a systematically study of double stars, measuring their positions and calculating their orbits around one another. From 1899, in collaboration with W. J. Hussey, he methodically created a very large catalog of such stars. This ongoing work was published in Lick Observatory bulletins.
In 1905, Hussey left and Aitken pressed on with the survey alone, and by 1915, he had discovered roughly 3,100 new binary stars, with an additional 1,300 discovered by Hussey. The results were published in 1932 and entitled New General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 120° of the North Pole, with the orbit information enabling astronomers to calculate stellar mass statistics for a large number of stars. During his career, Aitken measured positions and computed orbits for comets and natural satellites of planets.
In 1908 he joined an eclipse expedition to Flint Island in the central Pacific Ocean. His work Binary Stars was published in 1918, with a second edition published in 1935. After joining the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1894, Aitken was elected to serve as president in 1899 and 1915 of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. From 1918 to 1928, he was chair of the double star committee for the International Astronomical Union. Aitken was partly deaf and used a hearing aid.
He was successively promoted to astronomer (1907), associate director (1923), and director (1930), and then retired in 1935.
In retirement, living in Berkeley, Dr. Aitken kept up many of his activities. He carried on a large correspondence with scientific and other friends. For several years he maintained the card catalogue of double star observations. Particularly did he keep up his activities in connection with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Besides all this, he participated in civic and church affairs, and he was a familiar figure on the campus and at the Faculty Club.
Dr. Aitken died in 1951 in Berkeley, Alameda County, California, and was survived by three sons, one daughter, and by eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
(Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. ...)
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Meanwhile, Robert Aitken devoted much of his time to the popularization of astronomy, and this became his main interest in retirement.
Dr. Aitken was associated with many scientific and other organizations. He was a member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for fifty-seven years, and for most of that time was an officer of the Society, and served on one or more of its committees. He became an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1932.
Physical Characteristics: When Mr. Aitken was a child, his health was rather poor and he was sick a lot. He started to lose his hearing because of middle ear infections that he endured and an absence of medication that would cure the infection. Every year Mr. Aitken could hear less and less. He was sick so much that he did not start school until he was nine years old. Mr. Aitken wore a hearing aid in one ear and read people’s lips.
Robert Grant Aitken married Jessie Thomas around 1888, and had three sons and one daughter. Jessie died in 1943.