Founder of the Ankara University Observatory and a Volunteer of Education Prof. Dr. Egbert Adriaan KREIKEN C. Güner OMAY with contributions by Juus KREIKEN Editor of Turkish Edition: Prof. Dr. Selim O. SELAM English translation by Ender ARKUN Identity Page of Turkish Edition Bilimsel ve Teknik Araştırma Vakfı Ankara Üniversitesi Gözelemevi’nin Kurucusu Ve Eğitim Gönüllüsü Prof. Dr. Egbert Adriaan KREIKEN ISBN : 978-605-87419-0-4 © Bilimsel ve Teknik Araştırma Vakfı 2011 Birinci Basım : Kasım 2011 (500 adet) Yeni Reform Matbaacılık Ltd. Şti. 0312 341 20 92 Ankara Kapak Zemin Resmi NASA Lunar Topographic Ortophotomap – Apollo 15 Photography, 1st Edition, 1972, Sheet LTO81C1(250), The Defense Mapping Agency Topographic Center, Washington D.C. BİTAV Bilimsel ve Teknik Araştırma Vakfı Turgut Reis caddesi No: 33/1 06570, Maltepe / Ankara Tel: 0312 229 01 65 • Faks: 0312 229 01 63 ii PRESENTATION The Turkish community is unfortunately one that is not much given to letters. To publish a book for the purpose of informing the community in a certain matter is not a case that is frequently encountered in this country. Mr. Güner Omay has achieved an important exception in this case and has written a book to fill an important gap by presenting us the cherished memory of Prof. Egbert Adriaan Kreiken, a personality who has been of great assistance to the science of Astronomy and Astronomy education in this country. I regard this book as a rarely encountered example of appreciative commemoration in our society. Prof. Kreiken was professor of Astronomy in the Faculty of Sciences of the Ankara University, instructor first to Mr. Omay and subsequently to me. Mr. Omay in his book dwells on the following contributions that Prof. Kreiken has achieved in the Astronomy education a) he established the Ankara University Observatory; b) to be able to raise the necessary scientific brains for upholding the Observatory and the department, he obtained scholarships abroad to his selected students from the NATO funds that was made available to him and c) he managed transferring the existing compulsory employment requirements of the Education Faculty students to the Ministry of Education to the Ankara University thus pioneered an important educational breakthrough. This led the way for many other students in different scientific disciplines or humanities to attain the possibility of remaining in the University and becoming future scientists or educationalists of the country. I would also like to add a memory: it was in the year 1961 or 1962, Prof Kreiken sent the newly returning students from America, Güner Omay and Zeki Tüfekçi, to the Astronomy class to recount their achievements and experiences in America. That was the first time that I saw the 80 column computer punch‐card in that lesson. I have always seen it as an example of Prof. Kreiken’s novelty seeking approach that he wanted to impose on us, to lead us shape our outlook on life while planning our future. Another heartening example was his employing the senior class students to teach in junior classes, which made us feel very important. This sentence by Omay emphasises another educative side of Prof. Kreiken: When he was working in Liberia “on seeing the low knowledge level of the students coming to the university, he decided to intervene in the secondary school science teaching curricula to raise its standard and to achieve this he was effective in renewal of the curricula, conducted courses for secondary school science teachers and wrote books to guide them.” Today in the face of the increasing number of students drawing nil in the university entrance examinations here, wouldn’t this approach be useful for us too? iii Quoting Mr. Omay: “Prof. Kreiken was a professor we were not used to seeing …. in spite of the load of work he was under he still found time to write his students abroad hand written letters that guided them and proposed remedies for their problems”. I was one of the students who benefited from his guidance through letters. He sent me, by making use of a NATO scholarship, in the end of 1963 to the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England. He was constantly guiding me through letters he wrote. He wanted me to write back to him as to my activities there, this way he was in constant control of my progress there. In one of his letters he wrote: “Try gaining experience by working in different sections of the Observatory, next year I will try to find a scholarship that would enable you to enrol in the doctoral programme of one of the universities”. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to see it happen, however I was able to obtain a PhD degree in a university there through his influence and ever since I thankfully remember this and his many other contributions to the positive direction that my education had taken. Finally I would like to thank Mr. Omay for this book and the opportunity he presented for me to express the gratitude I have for Prof. Kreiken. I will always remember Prof. Kreiken with the pipe he constantly kept between his lips, seemingly an instrument that contributed to hisp dee conjecture. Zeki Aslan Istanbul Kültür University iv FOREWORD Prof. Egbert Adriaan Kreiken was my professor of astronomy at the Ankara University Faculty of Sciences. In 1954, he did not only save the Astronomy Department from the possibility of being shut down but also managed to transfer to this Department four successful students from the military and another five or six outstanding students from the Education Institute, by employing a method hitherto unused. Furthermore he was also able to transfer the duration of Education Institute students’ compulsory services owed to the Ministry of Education to the University itself. Especially this achievement of transferring to the University the compulsory services of the astronomy students that originally belonged to the Education Institute, was a major breakthrough that subsequently also influenced the future of successful students of physics and mathematics to become in the future prominent scientific figures. Through his personal contacts with the forthcoming astronomy departments of the world, he was able to acquire by exchange their publications at no cost to the Department, thus enabling establishment of a sizable documentation collection. Most important of all he was able to provide the possibility of education abroad to about 10 Turkish students or assistants in his department, thus enabling them to become valuable assets to the Turkish world of astronomy. Additionally, through positive contacts he established with the Military, he was able to acquire the land at Ahlatlıbel in Ankara and all the equipment necessary for an observatory to be established there, which was inaugurated with a ceremonial meeting in 1963. Although having departed from the profession of astronomy following decease of my Professor, I firmly believe that all the achievements I was able to realize in my profession were results of the education that I received through possibilities presented by him and the path opened up before me on account of that. It is for this reason that to be able to pay my personal debt to my Professor, I decided to write his life story. To try to write a biography of a person, after forty seven years following his death, who spent the greater part of his professional life in several underdeveloped countries, presents another difficulty in regard of the deficiencies in such countries of keeping records of past events. I also encountered such difficulties however did not give up but at the end I had to do with whatever bits of information I could obtain. It is my sincere hope and wish that someone in the future may be able to reach the information that escaped me and be able to bring to light all the works of this extraordinary personality who was of great service to the Turkish education and science. v Receiving his doctoral degree in 1923 at the Groningen University, Prof. Kreiken began working in 1928 at the Bosscha Observatory in the Island of Java in Indonesia, then under Dutch rule. However he was able to stay there for only two years. Of the total of twenty three years that he spent in Indonesia, barring the one year he spent in the Mount Wilson Observatory and the five years he spent at the Japanese concentration camp, during all the remaining time he was administrator or teacher at secondary schools belonging to the Indonesian Government or Founding Rector of universities, and even according to some sources “Minister of Education” of that country, however the truth was that he was the senior counsellor to the ministry in the capacity of especially improvement of the university education in that country. Returning to his country in 1951, Prof. E. A. Kreiken was able to stay there only for a short time and was soon sent to Liberia on duty from UNESCO in the capacity of Professor of Mathematics and Physics. He worked in Liberia between 1952 and 1954 and subsequently he was sent to Turkey also by UNESCO in 1954. The Turkey episode of his life story depends on information received especially from his past students and what is provided by the Faculty of Sciences of the Ankara University. In this context, a copy of the application form of the Professor sent by UNESCO that was kept in his personal file, provided by Prof. Muammer Canel, present Dean of the Ankara University Faculty of Sciences, was a great help in establishing the milestones of his life story, I thank him heartily. For the Liberian episode of his life no information could be reached through any person or institution therefore for this part of his life his personal report to UNESCO was made use of.