George Howard Darwin

George Howard Darwin

Sir George Howard Darwin , FRS (born July 9, 1845 in Down , Kent , † December 7, 1912 in Cambridge , England ) was a British astronomer and mathematician . He was the fifth child (second son) of Charles Darwin . He is known for his theory that the moon was once part of the earth ( split-off theory ).

biography

George Darwin studied at Trinity College in Cambridge from 1864 to 1868 , graduating as the second-best student of his year and becoming a Fellow of Trinity College that same year . 1870 and 1871 he was involved in the scientific expedition to observe the solar eclipse in Sicily and then studied in London law . In 1873, however, he went back to Cambridge and in 1879 was accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Society . Since 1897 he was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

In 1883 he became Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University and in 1885 a member of the Board of Directors of the Meteorological Office. In 1892 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and later became President of the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1898 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society , and in 1904 to the National Academy of Sciences . In 1905 he received the Bathorden second class (KCB) and in 1911 the Copley Medal . In 1906 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , in 1907 of the Académie des Sciences and in 1909 a member of the Leopoldina .

Act

George Howard Darwin

Since 1882 Darwin studied the effect of the tides on the solar system with mathematical methods and became a recognized expert in the field. In 1883 he published a paper on tides in the journal of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , which made it possible for laypeople to predict tides. He also wrote corresponding articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Admiralty Scientific Manual . Following his calculations, he postulated the split-off theory for the origin of the moon, which made him well known, even if it is now considered wrong. According to the theory, the earth rotated so strongly in its early phase that part of it came off due to instabilities and formed the moon. In 1882 the geologist Osmond Fisher added the statement that the Pacific Ocean was the scar of this separation that is still visible today.

Based on the work of George William Hill , he calculated numerically solutions to the three-body problem . His work was published in 1897 under the title Periodic Orbits and initiated further research on the subject.

Other works include the publication published in 1875 on marriages among blood relatives as well as studies on the influence of geological changes on the earth's axis (1876), on the earlier history of the earth (1878), on the pressure of loose sand, on small changes in the level of the earth's surface and about weak earthquakes (with his brother Horace Darwin).

Marriage and offspring

George Howard Darwin was married to Martha (Maud) du Puy from Philadelphia , USA . The marriage had four children:

• Gwendoline ( Gwen ) Mary (1885–1957), artist and writer
• Charles Galton (1887–1962), physicist
• Margaret Elizabeth (1890–1974) ∞ Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1887–1982)
• William Robert (1894-1970)
• Leonard (1899-1899)

Works

• On beneficial restrictions to liberty of marriage . In: Contemporary Review . Volume 22, 1873, pp. 412-426
• Marriages between First Cousins ​​in England and Their Effects . In: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society . Volume 38, 1875, pp. 153-182
• The tides and kindred phenomena in the solar system (Boston, Houghton, 1899)
• Problems connected with the tides of a viscous spheroid (London, Harrison and Sons, 1879–1882)
• Scientific papers (Volume 1) : Oceanic tides and lunar disturbances of gravity (Cambridge: University Press, 1907)
• Scientific papers (Volume 2) : Tidal friction and cosmogony. (Cambridge: University Press, 1908)
• Scientific papers (Volume 3) : Figures of equilibrium of rotating liquid and geophysical investigations. (Cambridge: University Press, 1908)
• Scientific papers (Volume 4) : Periodic orbits and miscellaneous papers. (Cambridge: University Press, 1911)
• Scientific papers (Volume 5) Supplementary volume, containing biographical memoirs by Sir Francis Darwin and Professor EW Brown, lectures on Hill's lunar theory, etc ... (Cambridge: University Press, 1916)

literature

• Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 5th edition, p. 617, Leipzig and Vienna 1895.
• AEHL (1913): George Howard Darwin . Proceedings London Mathematical Society. 1913, Number 1 s2-12. doi: 10.1112 / plms / s2-12.1.1-v

Web links

• Literature by and about George Howard Darwin in the catalog of the German National Library
• John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson :  George Howard Darwin. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
• Publications by GH Darwin in the Astrophysics Data System
• Obituaries for GH Darwin in the Astrophysics Data System

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 20, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 65.