Robert R. McMath

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Robert Raynolds McMath (born May 11, 1891 in Detroit , † January 2, 1962 in Bloomfield Hills , Michigan ) was an American astronomer , engineer and entrepreneur who worked in the field of solar research .

Life

McMath was born the son of the wealthy bridge engineer Francis Charles McMath in Detroit in 1891. He graduated from the University of Michigan and graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1913 . He then worked as a bridge construction engineer in his father's company and in another company. During the First World War he was drafted into the army in 1917. After the war he became General Manager of the Biltmore Forest Eastates Company in North Carolina . On his return to Detroit in 1921, he went to the Motors Metal Manufacturing Company , first becoming Assistant Manager, President in 1925, Chairman of the Supervisory Board in 1938, and worked there until his death.

Like his father, McMath was interested in astronomy. In the early 1920s they came into contact with the amateur astronomer Henry S. Hulbert, a wealthy judge in Detroit. In 1922 they bought a small telescope, Robert McMath constructed a slightly larger one in 1926, and in 1930 they founded the McMath-Hulbert Observatory near Lake Angelus , Michigan, which was named in 1931. The close connections to the company Motors Metal enabled them to build new devices for solar observation. Robert R. McMath became known through the further development of the spectroheliograph for film recordings. The device went down in the history of astronomy as a spectroheliokinematograph (English spectroheliokinematograph ). In the early 1930s he published his first scientific work. In 1933 he, his father Francis C. McMath and Henry S. Hulbert received the John Price Wetherill Medal from the Franklin Institute . In the following years he was significantly involved in the development of further devices for solar observation and solar telescopes . From the founding of the McMath-Hulbert Observatory until his death in early 1962, he was director of this research facility. From 1945 to 1960 he was a professor at the University of Michigan.

In 1938 he became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1942 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1958 he was accepted into the National Academy of Sciences . He was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society . From 1952 to 1954 he was President of the American Astronomical Society .

In 1961 the solar telescope inaugurated at the Kitt Peak National Observatory was named after him and the astronomer A. Keith Pierce: McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. The asteroid discovered in 1963 (1955) McMath was also named after him.

Fonts (selection)

  • Robert R. McMath: The tower telescope of the McMath-Hulbert Observatory . In: Publications of the Observatory of the University of Michigan . tape 7 , no. 1 , 1939, p. 1-P19 .
  • Robert R. McMath: The McGregor Building and Tower Telescope of the McMath-Hulbert Observatory . In: Nature . tape 146 , 1940, pp. 287-288 .
  • Leo Goldberg , Orren C. Mohler, Robert R. McMath, A. Keith Pierce: Carbon dioxide in the infra-red solar spectrum . In: Physical Review . tape 76 , 1949, pp. 1848 .
  • Robert R. McMath: Solar spectroscopy with a vacuum spectrograph . In: Astrophysical Journal . tape 123 , no. 1 , 1956, pp. 1-8 .
  • Robert R. McMath, Orren C. Mohler, A. Keith Pierce, Leo Goldberg: Preliminary results with a vacuum solar spectrograph . In: Astrophysical Journal . tape 124 , no. 1 , 1956, pp. 1-12 .
  • Robert R. McMath, A. Keith Pierce: The Large Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak I . In: Sky and Telescope . tape 20 , 1960, p. 64 .

literature

  • Orren C. Mohler: Robert Raynolds McMath, 1891–1962 . In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific . tape 74 , no. 439 , 1962, pp. 282-285 .
  • OC Mohler, Helen Dodson-Prince: Robert Raynolds McMath, 1891–1962 . A Biographical Memoir. Ed .: National Academy of Sciences (=  Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences ). Washington DC 1978 ( nasonline.org [PDF]).
  • Robert R. McMath (obituary) . In: Physics Today . tape 15 , no. 6 , 1962, pp. 94 , doi : 10.1063 / 1.3058257 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Robert R. McMath. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 6, 2018 .
  2. ↑ AAS: Past Officers and Trustees. American Astronomical Society, accessed November 6, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME McMath, Robert R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McMath, Robert Raynolds (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1962
Place of death Bloomfield Hills , Michigan