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Dana,
Here is a bit more about Ken Freeman.
He has little name recognition in Australia, so I remarked to him once that if he was as good at cricket as he is at astronomy, he would be a household name in Australia.
Dr Kenneth C. Freeman is, in every way, comparable to any of the great extragalactic astronomers of the past.
Some of his recent papers, e.g. on NGC 1316 (arxiv: 1201.6010), come close to actually understanding galaxy formation and evolution, which is more than can be said for most of the other extragalactic astronomers!
Now in his early 70s, it seems possible that Dr Freeman will soon be turned into an "emeritus", which is bizarre and unfair, as he is still extremely scientifically productive.
I like Dr Freeman, as he is something of an "old school" gentleman, polite and slightly self-effacing, who is happy to answer some of my questions about galaxies.
Fortunately, there is no need for Ken to feel, like some other professional astronomers do, that I have no business (as an amateur astronomer) being an expert on galaxy morphology, because he knows gigantically more about galaxies than I do.
Ken Freeman is regarded as something of a renaissance man in astronomy, due to the fact that he has made major contributions in many and diverse areas:
- observational astronomy, and also theoretical astronomy
- Milky Way structure and evolution
- stellar astronomy
- disk galaxies and their structures
- bar structures, their evolution and dynamics
- the study of dark matter
- the structure and evolution of elliptical galaxies
- the evolution of galaxies
Best regards,
Robert
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