STEIN, JOANNES WILHELMUS JACOBUS ANTONIUS. - Jesuit, astronomer, b. at Grave (Holland) on 27 Feb. 1871, d. at Rome on 27 Dec. 1951.
Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1888, he studied mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Leiden (1895-1901). Ordained priest in 1903 at Maastricht, he was called in 1906 to Rome to the Vatican Observatory as assistant to Fr. Hagen. In 1910 he returned to his homeland and taught until 1930 at the College of St. Ignatius in Amsterdam. Having returned from a journey to Egypt, undertaken on a mandate from Pius XI to explore the possibilities of erecting a branch of the Vatican Observatory in Ethiopia, he was appointed in 1930 successor to Fr. Hagen in the direction of the Vatican Observatory, in which office he remained until his death.
His scientific activity, owing to particular circumstances, was predominantly theoretical and historical. An indefatigable worker, endowed with uncommon intelligence and sound judgment, he acquired a vast erudition in the astronomical field and in the related sciences of mathematics and physics, which he placed with great selflessness also at the disposal of anyone who requested it.
In 1901 he obtained his degree in physical and astronomical sciences with a thesis on the determination of the variation of latitude at Leiden (Beobachtungen zur Bestimmung der Breitenvariation in Leiden nach der Horrebow-Methode). An expert in the theory of variable stars, he published various studies and compiled, for the great encyclopedia on the variable stars of Fr. Hagen, the second volume Die Veränderlichen Sterne, 2. Band. Mathematisch-physikalischer Teil, (Freiburg 1924), in which he sets out the mathematical and physical parts in explaining the variation of light of these stars. After the death of Fr. Hagen he edited the edition of series VIII of his Atlas stellarum variabilum (1934) and compiled series IX and last (1941). He also collaborated on the astrographic Catalogue, seeking out double stars in the zone entrusted to the Vatican Observatory. Fr. Hagen's experiments relating to the rotation of the earth induced him to save from oblivion the classic experiments of Kamerlingh-Onnes, editing a new edition of them in French with appropriate additions (1910). On the occasion of the reappearance of Halley's comet he published a historical study (Caliste III et la comète de Halley, Rome 1909), in which he exhaustively refuted the legend that Callistus III had excommunicated the comet. He also published on this occasion (1910) Un documento inedito del 1066 sulla cometa di Halley, found by Msgr. G. Bevilacqua in the Archive of the cathedral of Viterbo. Although the task of teaching in school hindered his scientific research not a little, this period was no less fruitful for his activity as a writer and popularizer. In Studien, a journal of general culture of the Dutch Jesuits, there appeared some fifty scientific articles. He carried on an inspiring activity in the circles of Dutch amateur astronomers and was editor of their journal Hemel en Damphring for the astronomical part, for which, until his departure for Rome, he had supplied 106 articles on the most diverse subjects.
His most important and most fruitful work for astronomy remains his wise reorganization of the Vatican Observatory, which he transferred to Castel Gandolfo as a more favorable location and succeeded in equipping with instruments suited to modern research. He further added, under the direction of Fr. Gatterer, an astrophysical laboratory, increasing the personnel assigned to scientific research.
He was a member of various scientific societies, an ordinary member of the Pont. Academy Nuovi Lincei, and subsequently a supernumerary member of the reorganized Pont. Academy of Sciences, and a corresponding member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.
Bibliography5 works
Giuseppe Junkes