Ernest William Brown
Ernest William Brown (born November 29, 1866 in Hull , Yorkshire , † July 22, 1938 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American mathematician and astronomer .
He received his academic training at Cambridge University , later he taught mathematics at Haverford College (1891-1907) and at Yale University (1907-1932).
He became known for his studies on the movement of the moon, which he carried out with the help of a method developed by George William Hill . The Hill – Brown – Eckert theory (from the latter comes the numerical implementation) was considered the best motion model of the moon until the ELP was published and was the computational basis of NASA's mission to the moon up to the moon landing .
In addition, he made orbital observations of various Trojan asteroids, a Jupiter moon and star systems.
Ernest William Brown was President of the American Mathematical Society from 1915 to 1916 and President of the American Astronomical Society from 1928 to 1931 . In 1912 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Cambridge (Periodicities in the solar system) .
Wallace John Eckert is one of his doctoral students , who made a name for himself with early computer-aided orbital calculations of the moon, especially for the Apollo program .
Honors
- 1907 Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society
- 1910 Pontécoulant Prize from the French Academy of Sciences
- 1912 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1914 Royal Medal of the Royal Society
- 1920 Bruce Medal
- 1921 Corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences
- 1923 member of the National Academy of Sciences
- 1936 James Craig Watson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences .
In addition, the lunar crater Brown and the asteroid (1643) Brown were named after him.
Web links
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Ernest William Brown. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
- EW Brown publications in the Astrophysics Data System
- Obituaries for EW Brown in the Astrophysics Data System
Individual evidence
- ^ Curtis Wilson: The Hill-Brown Theory of the Moon's Motion: Its Coming-to-be and Short-lived Ascendancy (1877-1984) . Springer Science & Business Media, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4419-5937-9 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brown, Ernest William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American mathematician and astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 29, 1866 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hull , Yorkshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 22, 1938 |
| Place of death | New Haven , Connecticut |