biography
pronunciation:
[nyookuhm]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1835–1909)
|
| biography:
| Astronomer and mathematician, born in Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada. Born to New England parents who had moved to Nova Scotia, he immigrated to the USA in his teens. Eventually finding work at the office of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac then located at Harvard College, he took a degree from the college's Lawrence Scientific School (1858). Appointed a professor of mathematics by the US Navy in 1861, he was assigned to the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. He remained affiliated there until 1897 and also served as professor at Johns Hopkins University (1884–94, 1898–1900). Although he made telescopic observations, his major contributions came through his complex mathematical calculations; with these he effectively recalculated and corrected all the known positions and motions of the bodies of the Solar System and the major celestial reference objects, a monumental accomplishment that was accepted throughout the world. He also did pioneer work in calculating the Sun's parallax and, with A A Michelson, determined the velocity of light. In addition to his scientific writing he published popular texts, Reminiscences of an Astronomer (1903), and three novels. He helped found and was first president of the American Astronomical Society (1899–1905) and was the recipient of many honours abroad as well as in the USA. |
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