biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1764–86)
|
| biography:
| English astronomer, born in Groningen, N Netherlands. A deaf-mute from childhood, he studied at Warrington Academy (1778–81) in England, where he excelled in mathematics. In 1782 he noticed that the brightness of the star known as Algol varied, and was the first to establish the periodic nature of this variation. He also suggested that the variability of Algol was due to its being eclipsed by a darker companion body, a theory eventually confirmed and which forms the basis of the class of stars known as eclipsing variables. |
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