Erwin Finlay-Freundlich
German astronomer (1885–1964)
Erwin Finlay-Freundlich (German: [ˈfʀɔɪntlɪç]; 29 May 1885 – 24 July 1964) was a German astronomer, a pupil of Felix Klein. Freundlich was a working associate of Albert Einstein and introduced experiments for which the general theory of relativity could be tested by astronomical observations based on the gravitational redshift.
Life
He was born in Biebrich, Germany the son of Friedrich Philipp Ernst Freundlich, a manufacturer, and his wife Elizabeth (Ellie) Finlayson. He was one of seven children, all of whom were raised Protestant, despite their father's Jewish heritage. His elder brother was Herbert Max Finlay Freundlich. He studied locally, leaving school in 1903. He spent 6 months working in the shipyards of Stettin which inspired him to begin studying shipbuilding at the Charlottenburg Polytechnic in Berlin. However he abandoned this in autumn 1905 to instead study Mathematics and Astronomy at Göttingen. Here he studied under Felix Klein and Karl Schwarzschild.
In 1913 he married Kate Hirschberg.
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