| Description: | Solar physicist, Flemish nationalist, biologist, musician, Marxist, amateur painter, enthralling lecturer, vegetarian, world traveler: Minnaert was all of these. He joined with Jan Oort to set up SRZM (Dutch acronym for the Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy), forerunner of ASTRON. The catholicity of Minnaert’s interests resounds through the pages of his popular book, De natuurkunde van ’t vrije veld ("Light and color in the outdoors"), an eye-opening ode to Nature. His sketches illustrate much of the book. Minnaert was also a polyglot, with a working knowledge of some 20 languages; over half a dozen (including Russian) he spoke fluently. His idealism showed in his zeal for Esperanto. We might, with Ed van den Heuvel wonder: if he spoke 20 languages, why Esperanto?
(This is the first portrait of several key figures in early Dutch radio astronomy. For some of the background, look here ) |
