In Search Of Van Serg...
You may have seen the name on the list of lunar
features that have been officially sanctioned by the International
Astronomical Union:
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FEATURE NAME
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LAT
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LONG
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DIAM
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ORIGIN
|
|
Van Serg
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20.2N
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30.8E
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0
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Astronaut-named feature near Apollo 17 site.
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Common practice is to name large craters for
famous scientists, scholars and artists. Small craters, if deemed
worthy of having a designation, are usually given common
"first names," such as Alan or Patricia. (Yes, there are
actually craters named Alan and Patricia on the Moon.)
You're probably familiar with some of the
legendary personalities that have had craters named for them —
famous folks such as Pasteur, Fahrenheit, Marconi, Edison and
Einstein. But who exactly was this mysterious "Van Serg"
that managed to get his name on the list of lunar features?
According to an article in the March 1997 edition
of Harvard Magazine, the university's official publication
for students and alumni, "Van Serg" is not a
real human being. In fact, "Van Serg" is the acronym for
a building on the Harvard campus, later adopted by a Harvard
professor as his nom de plume.
As reported in the "College
Pump" section of the magazine,
How many of us are aware that a blip on the
lunar landscape owes its name to an acronym devised for a
Harvard building? For this piece of intelligence the Pump is
obliged to Tom Lehrer ('47, A.M. '47), mathematician, teacher,
and comic song writer nonpareil.
From his presumably voluminous
files, Lehrer has sent an old New York Times clipping
stating that the 1972 moon visit of astronauts Eugene Cernan and
Harrison Schmitt will include a stop "at a crater named Van
Serg, after Prof. Hugh McKinstry, a 20th-century mining
geologist who wrote satires under the pseudonym Nicholas Van
Serg." To which Lehrer adds,
Here's my theory:
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|
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Tom
Lehrer
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Hugh McKinstry (1896-1961) was a professor of geology at
Harvard until his death.
The geology department was near the Vanserg building, and
Professor McKinstry must have known the name. (He may even
have dined there, as it was for some years the home of the
graduate dining hall.)
As far as I know, there is no such name as Van Serg in any
language.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that he took his pen
name from the name of the building, spelling it 'Van Serg' to
make it sound more like a surname.
The Vanserg building is a 'temporary' building, erected at
the end of World War II to house various departments. (The
roster has changed over the years; it has included the
mathematics department and — currently — expository writing
and history and literature.) Since the building was meant to
be temporary, there was no benefactor after whom to name it,
so they used an acronym of the names of the original tenants,
namely Veterans Administration, Naval Science,
Electronic Research, and Graduate dining
hall. (This fact appears to be known only to those who were
around at the time.)
Thus there is a crater on the moon which derives its name
from a Harvard acronym. I rest my case.
The Pump is advised by Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy
and the history of science, that the International Astronomical
Union lists Van Serg not as a crater but as a "lunar
feature named by an Apollo 17 astronaut." And who could
that have been? The prime suspect has to be Harrison Schmitt
(Ph.D. '64).
NASA's official website acknowledges this as fact,
stating, "Professor Hugh McKinstry, one of the leading
exploration mining geologists of this century, wrote many
educational satires under the pseudonym Nicholas Van Serg. The
name honors him and all professors who, through dedication and
ability, have infused the wisdom of the past into the
understanding of the present."
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