Forest Ray Moulton
Forest Ray Moulton | |
---|---|
Le Roy, Michigan | |
Died | December 7, 1952 | (aged 80)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Chicago |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy |
Doctoral students | Walter Bartky Edwin Hubble W. D. MacMillan[1] |
Forest Ray Moulton (April 29, 1872 – December 7, 1952) was an American astronomer.[2] He was the brother of Harold G. Moulton, a noted economist.
Biography
He was born in
He is noted for being a proponent, along with Thomas Chamberlin, of the Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis that the planets coalesced from smaller bodies they termed planetesimals. Their hypothesis called for the close passage of another star to trigger this condensation, a concept that has since fallen out of favor.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, some additional small satellites were discovered to be in orbit around Jupiter. Dr. Moulton proposed that these were actually gravitationally-captured planetesimals. This theory has become well-accepted among astronomers.
Moulton was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1910,[4] the American Philosophical Society in 1916,[5] and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1919.[6]
The crater
Moulton was a critic of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.[7]
He was in charge of ballistics at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during World War I.
According to Craig A. Stephenson:[8]
During the first decades of the 20th century, F. R. Moulton was one of the world's leading mathematical astronomers, and, without doubt, the leading mathematical astronomer in the United States. ... Moulton is today remembered as the author of several introductory books on astronomy, in particular his celebrated text on celestial mechanics; for his role in the formulation of the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal hypothesis; and for his work on ballistics in World War I. ... It was in connection with his wartime work on ballistics that he developed the popular method of numerical integration which now bears his name. ... However, for most of his 30-year career at the University of Chicago, it was the three-body problem which held his interest. His research on its periodic solutions began with his 1899 PhD thesis on oscillating satellites and culminated over 20 years later with the publication of his
magnum opusthe book Periodic Orbits (1920).
Selected publications
He became an associate editor of the
- An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics (1902;[10] second, revised edition, 1914)
- An Introduction to Astronomy (1906; 2nd, revised edition, 1916[11])
- Descriptive Astronomy (1912)
- Periodic Orbits (1920)
- New Methods in Exterior Ballistics (1926)[12]
- Differential Equations (1930)[13]
- Astronomy (1931)[14]
- Consider the Heavens (1935)[15][16]
References
- ^ "Forest Ray Moulton". Astronomy Tree.
- PMID 13056607
- New International Encyclopedia
- ^ "Forest R. Moulton". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
- ^ "Forest Ray Moulton". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 2023-02-09. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
- ISBN 978-0-691-12310-3
- ISBN 9781470456719.
- ^ Forest Ray Moulton — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. Here: p.345–346 (= p.7–8 in the file)
- .
- ^ "mini-review of An Introduction to Astronomy by Forest Ray Moulton". Popular Astronomy. 25: 217. 1917.
- .
- .
- .
- ^ "Book Review: Consider the Heavens, by Forest Ray Moulton". Popular Astronomy. Volume 44, 1936.
- ^ "Dr. Moulton Finds There Is Order in the Universe". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
External links
- Works by Forest Ray Moulton at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Forest Ray Moulton at Internet Archive
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Forest Ray Moulton", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- JRASC 47 (1954) 84 (obituary)
- PASP 65 (1954) 60 (obituary)
- Stephenson, Craig (21 November 2013). "Forest Ray Moulton and his plans for a new lunar theory". European Space Agency. (slides from talk at SRE Inter-Departmental Science Workshop, Aranjuez, Spain)