James Glaisher

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James Glaisher (born April 7, 1809 in London , † February 7, 1903 in Croydon near London) was an English meteorologist and aeronaut .

James Glaisher

Life

After working in land surveying in Ireland for a few years, James Glaisher was appointed assistant to the Cambridge and Greenwich observatories . After founding the Department of Meteorology and Magnetism in Greenwich, he took over its management in 1838, which he held for 34 years until he retired.

In 1845 he published his dew point tables for measuring air humidity . He was a founding member of the Meteorological Society (1850) and the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain (1866). He was also a member of the royal commission for the heating and ventilation of dwellings (1875), president of the Royal Microscopical Society (1865-1888) and from 1880 he held the post of chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund for 12 years . In 1849 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society . Since 1895 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Contemporary depiction of the record run, Coxwell on the left, Glaisher on the right

However, he became most famous in his day as a pioneer in aerology . Together with the balloonist Henry Coxwell , he undertook a total of 28 scientific balloon flights between 1862 and 1866. On their seventh flight on September 5, 1862, they climbed about 8,800 meters in an open basket. That was a height that no one had ever reached. Glaisher lost consciousness from the thin air, and Coxwell could only use his last strength to open the control valve to lower the balloon with his teeth. Glaisher's performance was only surpassed 32 years later, when Arthur Berson reached an altitude of 9,155 m in 1894 while taking additional oxygen with him.

In 1874 Glaisher resigned from his post at the observatory and devoted himself entirely to the Factor Tables begun by Johann Karl Burckhardt in 1814 and continued by Johann Martin Dase , which appeared in three volumes from 1878–83 and the prime factorization of natural numbers from 3,000,001 to 6,000. 000 included.

James Glaisher married 15-year-old Cecilia Louisa Belville (1828–1892) in 1843 , who would later make a name for herself as a photographer. (At the time, the legal age for marriage was twelve.) The marriage produced three children - Cecilia Appelina (1845-1932), astronomer and mathematician James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848-1928) and Ernest Henry (1858) -1885).

reception

The moon crater Glaisher was named after him.

In 2019, The Aeronauts was released, a biographical film in which Eddie Redmayne played the role of Glaisher.

Fonts

  • On factor tables. With an account of the mode of formation of the factor table for the fourth million (1878)
  • Travels in the air . (1880)
  • Hygrometrical Tables . (1885, 8th edition 1895)
  • A memoir on the radiation of heat from various substances .
  • Report on the meteorology of London in relation of the cholera epidemic of 1853-54 .

literature

  • Richard Assmann, Arthur Berson (ed.): Scientific aviation , Volume 1, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1899, pp. 47–81.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Royal Microscopical Society: Former RMS President's exploits brought to the Big Screen. In: RMS website. Royal Microscopical Society, accessed November 19, 2019 .
  2. ^ Entry on Glaisher, James (1809-1903) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
  3. ^ Member History: James Glaisher. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 21, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Peter Bundschuh : Introduction to Number Theory , 6th edition, Springer, Berlin 2008, p. 287. ISBN 3-540-76490-9
  5. ^ Caroline Marten: Glaisher, Cecilia Louisa (1828-1892) . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, October 2006 (online version, January 2007; accessed via www.oxforddnb.com)
personal data
SURNAME Glaisher, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English meteorologist and aeronaut
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1903
Place of death at Croydon