Erik Holmberg (13 November 1908 – 1 February 2000) was a Swedish astronomer and cosmologist. He is most famous for his work in the effects ofinteracting galaxies. This research showed that galaxies that came near each other would likely combine to form a larger galaxy.^[1]

In 1908, Holmberg was born to Malcolm and Anna Holmberg in Skillingaryd, Sweden. In 1947 he married Martha Asdahl. They had one daughter named Osa, who was born in 1953. He died on 1 February 2000 in Gothenburg, at the age of 91.

In 1941, Holmberg performed arguably the firstN-body simulation on the dynamics of interacting galaxies.^[2] In order to simulate the effect, he constructed an array of 37 lightbulbs.

Using photocells, he was able to measure the simulated force of gravity - because both gravity and light would follow aninverse square law. He concluded that, over time, the 'galaxies' would move closer toward each other. He also concluded in a later experiment thatelliptical galaxies are generally older thanspiral galaxies, among other discoveries.^[3]

TheHolmberg radius, a measure for the size of a galaxy on the sky, is named after him.TheHolmberg effect is also named after his observation that the satellite galaxies of a disk galaxy tend to be located along the disk galaxy minor axis.^[4] The evidences of such effect remain however debated.^[5]

• Holmberg II
• Holmberg IX
• Holmberg 15A

This Europeanastronomer–related article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 20th-century Swedish astronomers
• Swedish cosmologists
• 1908 births
• 2000 deaths
• Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• European astronomer stubs

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2014
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters
• All stub articles