Biography of Julio Garavito Armero
Julio Garavito was born on January 5, 1865 in Bogotá.
He was a Colombian astronomer,
mathematic and engineer.
His
research contributed to develop the science in Colombia during the 19th
century. His name was given to a crater on the moon, The Garavito crater by the International Astronomical Union.
His picture is in a bill of 20.000$, he was one of the Colombian who has been awarded with this honor.
He
obtained his degrees as mathematician and civil engineer in
the National university of Colombia. In 1892 he worked as the director of
the National Astronomical Observatory.
When
he was young, he studied at San Bartolomé high school, but in 1885 he had interrupted
his studies temporarily, because the civil war was affecting the country.
During the Thousand Days War, Garavito was part of a
secret scientific society called “The nine point circle”,
where the condition for admission was to solve a problem about Euler's theorem.
This group was active until Garavito's death in March 11, 1920.
As
an astronomer, he made many useful scientific investigations, such as
calculating the latitude of Bogotá, studies about the comets which passed
by the Earth, between
1901 and 1910, such as Comet Halley, and the 1916 solar eclipse.
The
most important of his studies was about celestial mechanics, including studies about
lunar fluctuations and their influence on weather, floods, polar ice,
and the Earth orbital acceleration. He worked also in other areas such as optics and economics.
He
helped the country to recover from the civil war. For that reason, he gave
lectures and conferences in economics and the human factors that affected it,
such as war or overpopulation.
One
of the most prestigious universities in Colombia is: Colombian School of
Engineering "Julio Garavito” created in 1972, with emphasis in Applied
Sciences and Engineering.
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