Named in honor of the University of Aberdeen on the occasion of the quincentenary of its founding, 1995 Feb. 10. The University is noted as having been home to the first chair of medicine in the English-speaking world. The teaching of natural philosophy was established more than 400 years ago, and the earliest record of the teaching of astronomy dates back to 1593. Occupants of chairs of natural philosophy include James Clerk Maxwell and more recently the Nobel laureate George Paget Thomson. (M 24765) _ _.