Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
C. A. Jensen, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, 1839 (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)
Born	(1784-07-22)22 July 1784 Minden, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	17 March 1846(1846-03-17) (aged 61) Königsberg, Prussia
Nationality	German
Known for	Bessel functions Bessel ellipsoid Bessel polynomials Besselian elements Bessel's correction Bessel's inequality Repsold–Bessel pendulum
Awards	PhD (Hon) University of Göttingen (1811) Lalande Prize (1811), (1816) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1829 and 1841)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy, mathematics, geodesy
Institutions	University of Königsberg
Doctoral students	Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander Heinrich Scherk

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (German: [ˈbɛsl̩]; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.