Michigan Astronomy Remembers...
Lawrence H. Aller
Lawrence H. Aller (1913 –2003) was born in Tacoma, Washington. He never finished high school and worked for a time as a gold miner. However, he managed to gain admittance to UC Berkeley, and received his bachelor's degree from there in 1936. He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1943. He came to Michigan in 1948, and was a member of the department until 1962, when he moved to UCLA.
His work concentrated on the chemical composition of stars and nebulae. He is best known for being an early proponent of the idea that some differences in stellar and nebular spectra were caused by differences in their chemical composition. His book Atoms, Stars, and Nebulae is still in print.
The Lawrence H. Aller Collegiate Professorship in Astronomy is named for him.
