Thomas Sumner
Thomas Hubbard Sumner (born March 20, 1807 in Boston , Massachusetts , † March 9, 1876 in Taunton , Massachusetts) was an American captain in the 19th century . The Astronavigation owes him an important development, as astronomical position line or as a Sumner line is called. It is a method of determining the position by measuring the height of stars and comparing them with their “target height”.
At the age of 15, Sumner went to Harvard . In 1829 he got a job on a merchant ship on the China route. Sumner developed his idea of the possibility of positioning on a voyage from South Carolina to Scotland in 1837. He published his findings 6 years later in 1843. His positioning method was considered so important that every ship in the US Navy was equipped with it .
Sumner's personal fate then turned tragic. In 1850 he was admitted to the McLean Psychiatric Hospital . Five years later, Sumner was sent to a madhouse in Taunton, Massachusetts, where he died in 1876.
A lunar crater and two USN - research vessels , USS Sumner (AGS-5) and USS Sumner (T-AGS-61) were named after him. The same applies to the Sumner Glacier in Antarctica.
literature
- Thomas H. Sumner - A New and Accurate Method of Finding a Ship's Position at Sea, by Projection on Mercator's Chart , Thomas Groom & Company of Boston, July 1843
Web links
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 55, No. 324, pp. 136-144; Richardson, Robert; June 1943, bibcode : 1943PASP ... 55..136R
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sumner, Thomas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sumner, Thomas Hubbard (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American captain |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 20, 1807 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 9, 1876 |
| Place of death | Taunton , Massachusetts |