Väisälä

25.9N

47.8W

8

Yrjö ~ (1891-1971), Finnish astronomer, geodecist and meteorologist; inventor of the aplanatic telescope, which provides correction for spherical aberration and coma.

Valier

6.8N

174.5E

67

Max ~ (1895-1930), German author, astronomer and rocketry engineer (born in Austria); influential in creating the Society for Space Travel, whose core members (including Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun [qq.v.]) later formed the amateur rocket club Raketenflugplatz. Killed while experimenting with a rocket car.

Van Albada

9.4N

64.3E

21

Gale Bruno ~ (1912-1972), Dutch astronomer.

Van Biesbroeck

28.7N

45.6W

9

George A. ~ (1880-1974), Belgian-American astronomer; famed binary star observer. The American Astronomical Society presents an annual award in his name "to a living individual for long-term extraordinary or unselfish service to astronomy, often beyond the requirements of his or her paid position."

Van de Graaff

27.4S

172.2E

233

Robert Jemison ~ (1901-1967), American physicist; developed an electrostatic particle accelerator used in nuclear research now commonly referred to as the Van de Graaff generator.

Van der Waals

43.9S

119.9E

104

Johannes Diderik ~ (1837-1923), Dutch physicist and molecular scientist; awarded 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his studies of the physical state of liquids and gases.

Van den Bergh

31.3N

159.1W

42

George ~ (1890-1966), Dutch astronomer.

Van den Bos

5.3S

146.0E

22

Willem Hendrik ~ (1896-1974), South African astronomer.

Van Gent

15.4N

160.4E

43

R.H. ~ (1900-1947), Dutch astronomer and author.

Van Maanen

35.7N

128.0E

60

Adriaan ~ (1884-1946), Dutch-American astronomer; while at Mount Wilson Observatory, he discovered the second white dwarf, since named van Maanen's star, with a density some 400,000 times that of the Sun.

Van Rhijn

52.6N

146.4E

46

Pieter J. ~ (1886-1960), Dutch astronomer; a student of Kapteyn (q.v.), whom he succeeded as professor of astronomy at Groningen University.

Van Vleck

1.9S

78.3E

31

John Monroe ~ (1833-1912), American astronomer and mathematician; longtime head of the department of mathematics and astronomy at Wesleyan University (Connecticut, U.S.A.). The university's observatory is named in his honor.

Van Wijk

62.8S

118.8E

32

Uco ~ (1924-1966), Dutch-American astronomer and educator; the physics and astronomy library at the University of Maryland (U.S.A), where van Wijk was a longtime professor, is named in his honor.

van 't Hoff

62.1N

131.8W

92

Jacobus Henricus ~ (1852-1911), Dutch chemist; awarded the 1901 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work on chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.

Vasco da Gama

3.6N

83.9W

83

Admiral Dom ~ (1469-1524), Portuguese navigator and explorer; Admiral of the Indies, first count of Vidigueira, sixth governor and second viceroy of India, Knight Commander of the Military Order of Christ.

Vashakidze

43.6N

93.3E

44

Mikhail A. (1909-1956), Soviet astronomer.

Vavilov

0.8S

137.9W

98

Nikolai Ivanovich ~ (1887-1943), Soviet botanist and geneticist, director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Industry (Russia); and Sergei Ivanovich (1891–1951), Soviet physicist, director of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow.

Vega

45.4S

63.4E

75

Jurij Vega, or Georg Freiherr von ~ (1756-1802), Slovenian mathematician, author, military commander and educator; educated in Vienna, Vega is best remembered for his tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Slovenian 50 tolar bank note bears his portrait.

Vendelinus

16.4S

61.6E

131

Canon Godefroid (or Gottfried) Wendelin, or ~ (1580-1667), Belgian priest, cartographer and educator.

Vening Meinesz

0.3S

162.6E

87

Felix A. ~ (1887-1966), Dutch geophysicist and geodesist; devised a pendulum apparatus, known as the Vening Meinesz pendulum, by which it became possible to measure gravity at sea with comparable accuracy as on land. The European Geophysical Society presents an annual award for distinguished research in geodesy in his honor.

Ventris

4.9S

158.0E

95

Michael George Francis ~ (1922-1956), British linguist; deciphered the ancient Mycenaean scripts known as Linear B, which he determined were written in an archaic form of the Greek language.

Vera

26.3N

43.7W

2

Latin female name.

Vergil
or Virgil

26.3S

133.0E

0

Publius Vergilius Maro, or ~ (70 B.C.-19 B.C.), Roman epic poet; his Aeneid, a national epic honoring Rome, is one of the greatest poems in world literature.

Vernadskii

23.2N

130.5E

91

Vladimir Ivanovich ~ (1863-1945), Soviet mineralogist; the Vernadskii Ridge Volcano in Russia's Kurile Islands is named in his honor.

Verne

24.9N

25.3W

2

Latin male name; not to be confused with Jules Verne (q.v.).

Vertregt

19.8S

171.1E

187

M. ~ (1897-1973), Dutch astrophysicist; his Principles of Astronautics is considered the quintessential work on the subject.

Very

25.6N

25.3E

5

Frank Washington ~ (1852-1927), American astronomer.

Vesalius

3.1S

114.5E

61

Andreas ~ (1514-1564), Belgian physician; pioneer in anatomical research.

Vestine

33.9N

93.9E

96

Ernest Harry ~ (1906-1968), American geophysicist and meteorologist.

Vetchinkin

10.2N

131.3E

98

Vladimir Petrovich ~ (1888-1950), Soviet physicist and engineer; a pioneer in aerodynamics and jet flight.

Vieta

29.2S

56.3W

87

François ~, Seigneur de La Bigottière  (1540-1603), French mathematician; regarded as the father of modern algebra.

Vil'ev
or Viljev

6.1S

144.4E

45

Mikhail Anatol'evich ~ (1893-1919), Russian astronomer; leading observer of comets.

Virchow

9.8N

83.7E

16

Rudolph Ludwig Karl ~ (1821-1902), German physician and pathologist; regarded as the father of experimental pathology.

Virtanen

15.5N

176.7E

44

Artturi Ilmari ~ (1895-1973), Finnish agricultural biochemist; awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in chemistry for "his research and discoveries in the field of agricultural and nutrition chemistry, and particularly his method of preserving animal fodder."

Vitello
or Witelo

30.4S

37.5W

42

Erazmus Ciokek Witelo, or ~ (1230-1280), Polish physicist, mathematician and philosopher; his Perspectiva is the classic work on geometrical optics, reflection, and refraction.

Vitruvius

17.6N

31.3E

29

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, or ~ (ca. 70-ca. 25 BC), Roman engineer and architect; his De architectura ("On Architecture") was the leading reference on architecture until the Italian Renaissance.

Viviani

5.2N

117.1E

26

Vincenzo ~ (1622-1703), Italian mathematician; a pupil of Galileo and Torricelli (qq.v.), he explained the celebrated problem of how an angle could be trisected by the aid of the equilateral hyperbola or the conchoid.

Vlacq

53.3S

38.8E

89

Adriaan ~ (1600-1667), Dutch publisher, bookseller and mathematician; published a table of logarithms from 1 to 100,000 to 10 decimal places in Arithmetica logarithmica, adding 70,000 values to those previously formulated, and constructed advanced log trigonometric tables.

Vogel

15.1S

5.9E

26

Hermann Karl ~ (1842-1907), German astronomer; director of the Potsdam Observatory, he was one of the earliest astronomers to devote himself almost exclusively to spectroscopy.

Volkov

13.6S

131.7E

40

Vladislav Nikolayevich ~ (1935-1971), Soviet cosmonaut; flight engineer on Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 11. He was aboard Soyuz 11 when an air valve opened accidentally during descent, killing Volkov and crewmates Viktor Patsayev and Georgi Dobrovolsky (qq.v.).

Volta

53.9N

84.4W

123

Count Allessandro ~ (1745-1827), Italian physicist; known for his pioneering work in electricity, he developed the so-called voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery. The electrical unit known as the volt was named in his honor.

Voltaire

11.9S

100.3E

0

~, nom de plume of Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1778), French philosopher, poet, critic and satirist; perhaps best known for Candide.

Volterra

56.8N

132.2E

52

Vito ~ (1860-1940), Italian mathematician; his most famous work was done on integral equations and functional analysis.

Von Békésy

51.9N

126.8E

96

Georg ~ (1899-1972), Hungarian otological physicist; awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his fundamental discoveries concerning the dynamics of the inner ear.

Von Behring

7.8S

71.8E

38

Geheimrat Emil Adolf ~ (1854-1917), German bacteriologist; discovered the serum to provide immunization from diptheria, for which he was awarded the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Von Braun

41.1N

78.0W

60

Wernher ~ (1912-1977), legendary German-American rocket pioneer; as technical director of the German rocket research center at Peenemünde, he was instrumental in the successful development of the V-2 liquid fuel rocket and also for other rocket weapons. Following World War II, von Braun was brought to the United States, where he was technical adviser at the White Sands Proving Grounds (New Mexico) and project director at Fort Bliss (Texas). In 1950, he became chief of the guided missile development division at Redstone Arsenal, then served as director of the development operations division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (now the Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama), where he developed rockets for the manned lunar program. He was named as  deputy associate administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1970.

Von der Pahlen

24.8S

132.7W

56

Baron Emanuel (1882-1952), German astronomer.

Von Karman

44.8S

175.9E

180

Theodore ~ (1881-1963), American aeronautical scientist (born in Hungary); noted for his work in fluid mechanics, he designed an early version of the helicopter. His important theory of boundary layers and his related studies of fluid flow at high subsonic, trans-sonic, and supersonic speeds were significant to post-World War II progress in all areas of flight.

Von Neumann

40.4N

153.2E

78

John Louis ~ (1903-1957), Hungarian mathematician, chemical engineer, educator and promoter of the stored program concept for computers; his logical design of the "computing machine" at the Institute for Advanced Studies, known as the von Neumann Architecture, became the prototype of most of its successors. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers presents an annual award in his honor "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology."

Von Zeipel

42.6N

141.6W

83

Edvard Hugo ~ (1873-1959), Swedish astronomer and astrophysicist; professor of astronomy at Uppsala University. The Von Zeipel Method is one of the core principles of celestial mechanics.

Voskresenskiy

28.0N

88.1W

49

Leonid Alexandrovich ~ (1913-1965), Soviet rocketry scientist; specialist in rocket technology testing.