**Antonie Pannekoek** (1873 - 1960) was an
[astronomer](Science "wikilink"), astrophysicist and [council
communist](Council_Communism "wikilink").

## Life

### Early Life and Scientific Career

Anton was born in Vaassen, [Netherlands](Netherlands "wikilink") in
1873, he had an interest in astronomy (the study of objects in space
such as comets, planets, stars and galaxies) from an early age, making
observations of the star
[Polaris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris) from a young age. He
studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden in 1891 and
published his first article "On the Necessity of Further Researches on
the Milky Way". After graduating, he was appointed as an observer at the
Leiden Observatory, he gained a PhD in 1902, a dissertation titled:
"Studies on the light change
[Algols](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algol)". He had a child in 1905
(who became a world-renowned geologist) with his wife Aaltje
Noordewier-Reddingius.\[1\]

### Political Shift

Anton had been a [liberal](Liberalism "wikilink") for most of his life,
but became a socialist after reading books by [Edward
Bellamy](Edward_Bellamy "wikilink") and began to study [Karl
Marx](Karl_Marx "wikilink"). He left the observatory in Leiden after
becoming dissatisfied with his work and moved to Belin. He became a
teacher at a school owned by the [Social
Democrats](Social_Democrats_\(Germany\) "wikilink") and published
political articles for magazines.\[2\]

### Return to the Netherlands

At the start of [World War I](World_War_I "wikilink"), he was on holiday
in the Netherlands and did not want to return to Germany, instead
becoming a teacher in physics, chemistry and maths. After the war, he
became fiercly criticial of [Lenin's](Vladimir_Lenin "wikilink") actions
in the [October Revolution](October_Revolution "wikilink") and
[authoritarian socialism](Authoritarian_Socialism "wikilink") in
general. In 1925, he became a lecturer at the [University of
Amsterdam](University "wikilink") and was elected to the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (actions that angered the
government, as he was a libertarian communist).

He traveled extensively through [Indonesia](Indonesia "wikilink") to
observe solar eclipses and mapped the sky in the southern hemisphere.
His application of quantum mechanics and physics to astronomy lead him
to being the founder of astrophysics in the Netherlands. He recieved an
honory doctorate from Harvard University in 1936 and in 1951 the Gold
Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society. The astronomical institute of
the University of Amsterdam, the Anton Pannekoek Institute, which he
founded was named after him.\[3\]

## References

<references />

1.  [Wikipedia](Wikipedia "wikilink") (Dutch) -
    <https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Pannekoek>
2.
3.