Halley, Edmond (hăl`ē, hô`lē), 1656–1742, English astronomer and mathematician. He is particularly noted as the first astronomer to predict the return of a comet and the first to point out the use of a transit of Venus in determining the parallax of the sun. In 1676 he went to St. Helena to observe the southern skies and as a result made a catalog of 341 stars of the Southern Hemisphere. In 1677 he made the first complete observation of a transit of Mercury. He financed the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia and helped to prepare it for the press. On the basis of Newton's theory, Halley calculated the orbit of the great comet of 1682—since known as Halley's comet Halley's comet or Comet Halley (hăl`ē, hā`lē)
..... Click the link for more information. —and predicted its return in 1758. In 1698–1700 he made one of the first studies of compass variations in the North Atlantic. He was made astronomer royal in 1720. He observed the moon through the complete revolution of its nodes; this took 18 years. Other discoveries of Halley's are the proper motions of the stars and the acceleration of the moon's mean motion. His noted synopsis of known comets appeared in 1705; his Tabulae astronomicae (1749, tr. 1752) was published posthumously.
(born Nov. 8, 1656, Haggerston, Shoreditch, near London—died Jan. 14, 1742, Greenwich, near London) English astronomer and mathematician. He studied at the University of Oxford. In 1676 he set sail for the South Atlantic with the intention of compiling an accurate catalog of the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. His star catalogue (1678) recorded the position of 341 stars. In 1684 he met Isaac Newton at Cambridge, which led to his prominent role (with Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren) in the development of Newton's law of gravitation. Halley edited Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, bringing it to print in 1687. He produced the first meteorological chart (1686, showing the distribution of prevailing winds in the world's oceans) and magnetic charts of the Atlantic and Pacific (1701). In astronomy, he described the parabolic orbits of 24 comets observed in the years 1337–1698. He showed that three of these were so similar that they must have been the same comet, and he accurately predicted its return in 1758 (see Halley's Comet).
..... Click the link for more information. —and predicted its return in 1758. In 1698–1700 he made one of the first studies of compass variations in the North Atlantic. He was made astronomer royal in 1720. He observed the moon through the complete revolution of its nodes; this took 18 years. Other discoveries of Halley's are the proper motions of the stars and the acceleration of the moon's mean motion. His noted synopsis of known comets appeared in 1705; his Tabulae astronomicae (1749, tr. 1752) was published posthumously.
Bibliography
See his Correspondence and Papers (repr. 1975); biography by C. A. Ronan (1970); L. Baldwin, Edmond Halley and His Comet (1985).
Halley, Edmond
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Edmond Halley, detail of an oil painting by Richard Phillips, c. 1720; in the National …
(credit: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)
Halley, Edmond
(1656–1742) British mathematician and astronomer; calculated orbit of comet named after him. [Br. Hist.: EB, IV: 860]
See : Astronomy
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