Jan Hendrik OORT (1900-1992) Looking Ahead in Wonder

The life of the man I think of as this century's greatest astronomer ended on 5 November 1992, a Iife long, rich, full of arduous labour and marvellous results. Without Jan Oort, ESO would not have begun when it did, indeed without him ESO might never have been. Yet our Organization's birth is but one of his many achievements and as we grateful-Iy remember him, his life is an inspiration unparalleled in our science, an epoch-making journey of our time. At Leiden Observatory- de Sterre-wacht de Leiden- which was Oort's base for most of his professional en-deavours, a careful compilation of his writings, including notes and corre-spondence, has been prepared and re-cently published, the archive deposited with the Leiden University Library, readi-Iy accessible for historical research. In 1980 friends and colleagues wrote a book, a fiber amicorum for and about him, called OORT and the UNfVERSE. Shortly thereafter Oort himself wrote one of his scarce autobiographical pa-pers which appeared in the series "My life as an Astronomer", in the 1981 issue of Annuaf Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics. A fascinating biography remains to be written. Professor Oort managed in some in-imitable way to combine his teaching' and research in the university context with policy making, programme de-velopment and organizational actions on both the national and international scenes. His research spans seven de-cades: from his first paper, in 1922, enti-tled "Some peculiarities in the motion of stars of high velocities " to the last one